Everything but...

My poor hoodie, the sleeves are still not complete! At least I have finally made it past the elbow on one...progress is progress.  Of course I am not helping matters (nor is marathon coaching and training).  The past week or so, I have been doing everything I could to avoid working on those sleeves, such as:

I tried out the (♥AMAZING♥) Contiguous sleeve method on a new sweater. Really, you should check this out! It is like top down set in sleeves with the ease of a raglan...here's the Ravelry group with tons of info from the originator of the method.

I made twelve pounds of soap, then went on an ordering binge to restock my soap supplies so I can make more soap.  Then I trawled around the soap making forums I used to hang around for more soap making ideas and projects.  Here's the soap:

Definitely not as pretty as I used to be able to make, but I haven't soaped in over a year...and I decided to try a new coloring method. Not my best idea.

Finally, I broke out the dyes again! I did end up getting the Kindle version of Hand Dying Yarn and Fleece by Gail Callahan and I also downloaded the "Gorgeous Hand Dyed Yarn at Home," pdf from Three Irish Girls (I did get the gradient one, too and I do not recommend it...the method is super complicated and time consuming).  Both had good tips and featured slightly different methods, but also had a lot of information that I had already gathered online.  It is nice though to have the information neat and in either a pdf or in my Kindle app...especially when my interwebs get funky (which is weekly, thanks Comcast).

I did some handpainting, which came out kind of awful, it was my fault for getting a bit overzealous with the acid.  Then I tried to do a quick glaze; throwing it into hot, acidy water with a smidge of a darker color to tone it down...I think that just made matters worse.  So today we won't be seeing any pictures of that poor skein ;) Hopefully an overdye in a completely different color will save it.

Happily I did have a success yesterday! I used this method of dying...so much fun! I went for a little more order when sprinkling my dye powders...I used a .5 gm scoop of Jacquard Hot Fuchsia for one end of the skeins, then 4 - .5 gm scoops of Jacquard Silver Gray for the middles and a .5 gm scoop of Greener Shades Midnight Black for the other ends.  In hindsight I could've used about half of the gray, but I am still in love with this method and the results.  Unfortunately, I was having to much fun during, so I forgot to take in progress pics, but here is the finished yarn:




I am calling it "B♥MB," since it is kind of like a crazy fluorescent explosion!