So the other day I decided to try my hand at dyeing... hey, I'm going to have sheep and I want to spin their wool (hey, dog hair too!) and I try to knit (even if I'm not so good at it atm) so I figured dyeing was really pretty logical extension and Sif said it was easy after all. I pondered over what colours I wanted, looked at pictures for inspiration and then looked at the dyes I HAD and revised my plans. We're not broke but we do have to be careful and not invest a lot of money in something I might not want to do again. So I promised myself I'd do this IF I could do it with materials I already had. I also do cake decorating on a hobby level so that meant Wilton icing dyes.

I decided to go with one that was firey, one that was more subdued autumn leaf colours and one that was muted moss colours like the dappled growth under the canopy because knitting and wool always reminds me of the autumn. I wanted to go real blendy so the colours would softly segue into the next instead of clear colourways. Here's the results!

Hank 1: 8 Ply 100% Merino (NZ) This is my sunset one - shades of pink, orange and yellow-gold. It came out less intense than I wanted and have seen Wilton dyes turn out nicer on the web but since it was the first one I didn't know how much to use to get intense colour.

Skein 2: Handspun Merino Silk blend. Dyed with Tea and mixes of Wilton in reds, coppery oranges and hints of soft yellow with golden-brown overtones. Ohhhhh this turned out pretty! This is the autumn leaves one!

Skein 3: 8 Ply 100% Merino (NZ) Dyed with Tea and mixes of Wilton. My forest floor one, various shades of green, yellow, blue-green and brown.

Now I've got to figure out something to make with them! Probably I'll go with something simple for myself.

Having success in this, I also decided to try working on the "problem" I'd had with knitting. Last year I really wanted to have a go at making stuff for La because I liked the idea making stuff that was sweet (vs. the "boys must only wear blue things with trucks or other macho crap on it" variety) and I really loved the idea of him "wearing" the love and thoughts I've put into making it wherever he went. That said I'm not very good and got stuck. Every few months, I'd pick it back up, reread the book attempting to figure where I was going wrong, get frusterated and put it back down.

I *knew* it was something SO super simple I'd kick myself once I figured it but darn it I was doing everything my Very Expensive Pattern Book (Debbie Bliss) said step by step, word for word and it just didn't WORK. So at any rate, I finally figured it out and yeah... it's so SIMPLE and OBVIOUS! Der! I'd gotten the individual steps correct but put them together as every other STITCH instead of every other ROW. To be fair, my darn book didn't actually specify that - just that the steps were alternating. *SIGH*

So. Onto pics! I have heaps!

Comfy critters... you don't think they like each other or anything, do you?

Hugs all around!

Riding out...

... and rounding 'em up! ("I got 'em boss!" says Hope!) La's steed is Bijou, who incidentally used to belong to his daddy when he was knee high.

We're pretending the bread basket is a car. "Brrooooooooommmmm!!!"

Why co-sleeping is the best... waking up to a happy giggling bubba, playing hide and seek!

More pics coming tomorrow. We're also down to our final day or two where we have to decide to leave the offer on the table for the Tremont house or not. My biggest concern at this point is the cost... we got $620,000 for this house, of which $20,000 went to the agents/lawyers/advertizing, leaving us with $600,000. Now $10,000 of that needed to go back to La's school investment fund because we'd borrowed out of it to fix this house up to sell. Then we needed to have money for the house and some left over to invest for ourselves and buy some furniture because what we have, aside from a few nice pieces Nic and I have got together, is very old (30 yrs+) and not terribly sturdy stuff we've inherited from his grandfather and mom. Doing the math on this house...

$510,000.00 for the house

$ 26,260.00 stamp duty

$ 3,756.00 electric

$ 50,000.00 fixing up, fencing etc.

$ 20,000.00 for add'l bedroom

--------------------------------------

$610,016.00

So we're over what we have available without even being able to put the money back into La's account, invest some for ourselves or get any furniture to put in the house. Now granted we don't NEED the 3rd bedroom straight away - not for another year or two but it's still money that would go to that instead of to investments for school or such. Both Nic and I want to go back to school, want La to be able to go to a good school and want to be able to occasionally afford to take trips to see family in France etc. Nic has sort of gone, "Yeah, yeah..." and figured I'm exadgerating and worrying over money excessively, surly it's not that bad and I'm exadgerating when I say we won't have ANY left over etc. But figures don't lie really. And even without the 3rd bedroom right away that's still $590,016.00 which means the only thing of the rest of our plans would be to pay back La's account.

OTOH it's one of the only houses with land on the market, Nic likes it (which I have to give weight considering he's even willing to move out this far at all), it's close enough for La's schools etc. and there's the question of how much we'll spend renting before we find another place and IF we can even find a place to rent. I need a crystal ball to see the future!