No Pink

I was hoping that after several sessions of shimmering, the apple bark dye would saturate the wool and turn into pink as my book said.

No such luck. See the pretty muted pink swatch? This was what I was hoping for, and what I was supposed to get. See the wool next to it? It's just another sad pale tan! I don't think I made a mistake on the dye stuff - fiber ratio. I had 154g of bark, and I dyed 65g of wool -- considering that the book recommends 1:1 ratio, I was pretty conservative.

The lichen dye has been sitting for more than four months. No pink there either. It's supposed to take 120 days to develop the deep burgundy color. Mine is just sickly greenish brown. I just learned from one of the Japanese fiber blogs that I visit that I'm supposed to open the jar lid to let the air in. I didn't do that -- being afraid of the ammonia odor. Come to think of it, I'm supposed to shake the jar daily to incorporate the oxygen into the dye, so it only makes sense to let the supply of oxygen in. So I've been braving the smell to open the jar every day, but no luck.

OK -- three failures (Black-eyed Susans, apple bark and lichens) out of six (dandelions, turmeric and hibiscus tea were successful) isn't that bad. As much as it's been discouraging and disappointing.

Oh, by the way -- Mitch says "Hi Grandma!" to his Grandma Eunice. What a goofball!

Weekend in Texas...

Hello everyone, Erin here. Just thought I'd announce myself as Tamami is usually the one that does the posting.

First of all, let me give kudos to Tamami for making our blog beautiful and for keeping up the posting. I swear this blog would be dead if it were left up to the rest of us to post!

I thought I would post a not so knitting related update. Yesterday I returned from a long weekend in Austin, Texas with my son, Austen. We went for my brother's wedding, and we had a great time. However, I'm a bit tired since I wasn't in bed before 3 am any night that I was there. I spent a lot of time with my uncle seeing the city and shopping at WalMart at 3am. Do you know how many people are at WalMart at 3am? Exactly 5 (not including us). - 4 people stocking shelves and one checker. It was a bit surreal.

Here is a picture from the wedding. The ring bearer is my son.


I had hoped to get more knitting done on the trip, but not much knitting except on the plane. I travelled with 3 different projects and wasn't asked once at the airport to open my bag. I guess that the screeners are used to knitting needles.

Knitting update:
On the needles: Plain sock (2nd one) in Socks that Rock January One colorway, Feather and fan shawl in KnitPicks Andean Treasure in purple, and Meida's socks from Favorite Socks book in Chasing Rainbows pansies colorway.

I need a break...

It's been pretty tough. Just way too busy at work. Too many problems. Yuck.

It means not much time spent on my wheel -- even though I'm completely in love with it and what it produces.


Even if my mint green roving and the spun yarn on a bobbin reckons.

My modified Boogie vest still awaits to be completed. The mystery of three missing stitches on my sock remains to be a mystery. I have never kept a sock on needles this long, untouched.

I've been trying some more natural dyeing -- I started to make a dye bath with apple tree bark before I left to Toronto. Finally yesterday I bathed wool in the pretty pink bath. It looks pretty when it's in the bath, but when I lift it up and the dye drains off, the wool is just pale tan color. Reminds me of the Black-eyed-susans failure. Bummer.

My baby has a bum thumb. He fell with a drinking glass in his hand -- although, very fortunately, he didn't cut his hand, he bruised his thumb to the extreme, and his thumbnail is about to peel off. I can't bear to even look at it(hence no picture) -- I just have to cry every time. The doc says: "You have a boy. This isn't going to be the last time." Oh, thanks for the reminder.

Mitch (before his bum-thumb incident) had a great time at his first soccer practice.

It was raining and cold, but he was still fully engaged and loved everything about it. He didn't want to leave the field after the fun session.

Lucky kid -- the poor bum thumb aside -- I never had such opportunities to play sports or do anything when I was growing up, outside school or what my mom could teach me. Like knitting and sewing that I learned from my mom.

I've been trying to plan a business trip to China and Japan since last year. It's becoming clear to me after three cancellations and re-booking that I just have to give up on China -- just fly to Japan, do my business and come right back. Alone. BUMMER.

This is so wrong.

I think I have to give a long and hard look at what I'm doing. The little guy at the soccer field agrees with me.

Like It?

Yeah, a new look of the blog. Let me know what you think.
Today is the first soccer practice for my 3-year-old son, but it's gray and chilly here in Novato. It's supposed to rain.

What a Week

Boy what a week. I feel like I was all over the place! As the week comes to a close, I'm feeling good about my accomplishment.

I was in Toronto from Sunday to Wednesday. The first two days were very cold, with freezing wind. But it was warming up as I left.
I took my extended team out to lunch, for a celebration for the end of a successful project. Yum... Oysters were great! I got to know many new people on this trip.

St. James Church, from my hotel window -- early in the morning.

Saturday night before I left to Toronto, I plied the single from the brown pencil roving and the hibiscus-dyed single.
I love the way it turned out. Amazingly, I had perfect two singles length-wise. I only had about 10 cm of brown single left after I finished plying. It was meant to be!!

I resisted the urge to spin the mint-green superwash wool before I left, but now that I got some new bobbins, I did spin some last night. It's heavenly. I will post the photo next time.

I'm not doing so well on the knitting front. I started new pair of socks on the way to Toronto, and now I'm on the toe decrease for the first sock. I'm missing four stitches from one of the four needles. I can't figure out what happened! It will take some serious decoding to find out where I went wrong. My weekend project.

I finished the front piece of Boogie vest before I left, but I was utterly disappointed. Right before I finished it, I finally realized that it wasn't the design I was envisioning. From the only photo on this pattern on Knitty, I thought it was a V-neck (and that's what I wanted). But it's actually like a Henry neck, not a V.

I just couldn't tell from the picture on the pattern, as the shirt collar was obstructing the vest's neck. But if I actually read the pattern to the end, it was quite, quite obvious. Sigh.

So, now I frogged the neck shaping (or lack thereof) and now I'm working on making it look like a V, decreasing toward the shoulder seams. I am not sure how it's going to go, but I'll see... I just don't want to end up not liking it, as it won't do justice for my 20 + year old yarn!

I'm starting to realize, despite my denial and effort to ignore, that I am not a good knitter. But I think I'm pretty good at spinning. Yes, it does help.

Enhansing Stash

I really shouldn't go browsing on Ebay. I bought some mill-ends roving from this seller called yarn1merch2 in February. Her fiber was wonderful and the price was great, so I kept going back to her store -- and here's my second purchase, just arrived today.

It's beautiful mint-green superwash wool. I bought six four-ounce rovings. I love this fiber, and I love this seller. She's very honest and transaction is fast! Nice to find a seller like this. I hope she does well on Ebay.

I am out of empty bobbins, so I'll have to wait until another batch of bobbins to arrive from Yarn Barn of Kansas. I can hardly contain myself.

Here's my boogie vest, almost done with the front piece.

See how wobbly the stitches are? It's because the yarn is wavy from being frogged from a 20 + years old UFO. I probably should have either washed or steamed the yarn after I ripped it, but I actually like this "textured" look. It does look very hand-made. It's looking like the yarn is finally being worn!

I am leaving to Toronto Sunday afternoon. I am hoping that I'd get to go to Lettuce Knit while I'm there. But I don't need more yarn or fiber! I mean, I want it, I need it, but I shouldn't.

Spring Full Swing

Spring is ...

Here in full bloom. The fragrance is mind-boggling. Bees buzzing around.

And here. Just the prittiest season in our backyard.

I finally got up enough courage to spin the brown pencil roving my spinning teacher Nancy gave me last year.

The fiber is fairly short, and very curly, making the spun yarn amazingly springy, stretchy and lofty. It amazes me every time I spin new fiber -- the fact that each one requires different way to spin, and different yarn it produces. For this one, I needed to put in a lot more twist. Almost no predrafting was needed.

I'm pondering now what to do with this single -- I can ply this with the dandelion yarn, or ply it with the hibiscus yarn. All of these are about 20 - 30 grams, so by plying them together, I can have a longer yarn... If I tried to ply them with its own kind, the length will be 1/2. I really need an idea on how I can use these small skein of hand-dyed handspun. Any suggestions?

I've dyed more wool last week with just dandelions only. It went really well, and I have those now to spin. Or I might wait for another Little League baseball game and collect more flowers and dye another batch. Too bad that you have to use fresh dandelion flowers -- they can't be dried.

When I was picking dandelion flowers, Mitch asked, "Why are you picking them?" My reply; "Oh, I'm cooking dandelion soup." Mitch: "Again!?" Hope the other parents didn't hear our conversation.

My boogie vest is going well. I hope it's big enough for me though! I'm going to Toronto again soon, and it means that I should start a pair of socks. I know which yarn I'm going to use, but which pattern?

Dandelion - Daffodil Blend

In my last post, I wrote about picking dandelions for another attempt on dyeing my wool. I think the reason of failure when I tried to dye with the Black-Eyed Susans was that the ratio of the flowers (dye matter) and the wool was not right. For most natural dyes, especially flowers, the ratio should be 1 - 1. It was more like 1 flowers - 2 wool. The result was pretty miserable.

So, I pondered -- Should I go with very little wool to make sure it will turn out yellow, or shall I go pick more dandelions in the neighbors' yards? Then I looked at our dinner table -- a large vase full of golden daffodils, 50 of them! They were for American Cancer Society's fundraiser called Daffodil Days. My employer sponsors it every year, and I've been buying for as long as I can remember.


This year's flowers were large and gorgeous, but they were fading fast... So, I decided to make a Dandelion - Daffodil Golden Blend. I simmered the flowers for two one-hour long sessions. It smelled like chamomile tea, but it looked shockingly disgusting, so I won't post the picture.


One thing I really like about dyeing with natural dyes is that most of the time it's safe to leave it in the kitchen -- it doesn't smell bad, and no chemical fumes. I can't dedicate hours at a time to do things like this, so it's very convenient. Anyway, about 150 dandelions, 50 daffodils and a few days later, I got 15 grams of lemony yellow roving.


The wool is corriedale, and it was pre-mordanted with alum and cream of tartar. I did go very conservative this time on the dye matter - wool ratio.

This is the carded wool, blended with about 3 grams of soy silk.

Sigh. The colors in the pictures never come out right. It's really a pretty lemony yellow. It's just so little that I don't know what to do with it....

You pretty daffodils, what great lives you had! Raised money for great cause, gave joy to me for a few days, then helped me to create pretty and sweet smelling yarn. You will never be forgotten!

This weekend, we spent some time cheering at Erin's sons' baseball games. I picked some dandelions at the field (well, not in the baseball field where they were playing!). I think I'll try a second batch without daffodils.

My Boogie vest is progressing well. I'm done with the back, and I started on the front after the game this afternoon. Oh, by the way, Josh was awesome in the game today -- I'm a big fan!

Four Hobbies, Altogether

Knitting. Not much to show yet, but I cast on a Boogie vest on Friday. I'm using yellow wool 100% yarn that I frogged a 20+ year old UFO (unfinished object). It's a very simple design, and the back, which I'm on now, is just stockinette stitches all the way. Kinda comforting right now. After the never-ending fingering weight socks, I can use this for a while. I have an itch for a summer cotton sweater though -- I will take some time to decide which one, as it's very likely that I only get to knit one summer sweater!

I realized that I forgot to post my socks number two for the year.

Garter Rib Socks, done in KnitPicks Parade. DPN size 2. Very warm, snug and comfy, and these are for me!

Spinning. At Friday's Knit Night, I was telling Liz about recycled sari yarn, and remembered that I had a blue-gray large men's silk shirt that neither Charlie or I have worn. I can torn it in narrow strips and ply -- Saturday morning I looked for it in the closet, and then realized that I had just given it away to Goodwill. Agh. Cleaning your closet just doesn't pay off! I will be more careful next time I get an urge to de-clutter.

Gardening. I've been spending fair amount of time in my garden lately. I've spent some money to buy the plants I had always wanted to have. Camellia. Lemon. Star Jasmine. Peony. I figured that I should enjoy them now -- no more waiting for the right time to come.

Apple has started to blossom. Soon my wisteria will start blooming -- I love spring.

Dyeing. Yesterday, Mitch picked some dandelions from the front yard and gave them to me. Then I looked around -- oh my. Our front yard is speckled with yellow flowers all over! They are very short so the lawnmower doesn't catch them. I started to pick them and then realized that I had a small bowl-ful of flowers. They went into my dyepot, and this morning I went for another sweep. I think I have about 150 flower heads. Let's see if this would produce anything significant...

Mom's Broadripple

I finished Broadripple socks for my Mom last night, as planned. Unfortunately, it was just a few yard short of being one-skein socks.

Just half-an-inch more to go on the toes for the second sock! But I had purchased four skeins of the same yarn (since I'm used to the notion of two 50-gram skeins to knit a pair), so no problem --

This is my second pair of Broadripple. This time I used Knit Picks Dancing (fingering, 50 grams/253 yards) and US 2 DPNs. Since the original pattern is designed for Fixation (which is thicker than Dancing) and US3 DPNs, I modified the pattern a little -- I added two stitches in each repeat of pattern, making it total of 64 sts, instead of 56 sts.

Fits comfortably on my foot. Hopefully they fit my mom's too.

As I mentioned before, I just love this pattern. The pattern designer Rob Matyska says he's working on "Broadripple 2." I can't wait!

This is the third pair this year -- well on track for my goal of a dozen for the year!-- but knitting adult socks with fingering weight can be tough. After the gusset decrease is done on the second sock, the rest felt like never-ending!

I forgot to bring the copy of pattern for 64-sts heel turning to Montreal, and Charlie kindly sent me what I needed via email. Thank you!

Mitch taking pictures of the socks with his camera. My future knitting blogger.

I'm again project-less. I want to knit something other than socks for a while, but what should it be? I keep looking, but I still haven't found a vest pattern that I want to knit.

Coming Home

I was in Montreal again for the most of this week. It was a tiring trip, as usual. I just can't sleep for the first night every time I go to the other coast, so that makes me even more exhausted. At least it wasn't as cold as the last visit to this city.... There were still lots of snow left on the street, but I didn't need a winter coat. People kept telling me that it's spring -- it's warm. To me still, snow on the ground and "warm" don't mix.


Right in front of the hotel.

La basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal. Photo courtesy of my colleague Ken (thanks!).

On Wednesday, my afternoon meeting got cancelled, so for the first time on my fifth visit to this city, I finally had a chance to go venture out to find a yarn store. I marked the map, hailed a cab, then I realized that I left my camera at the hotel -- I'm just not destined to take photos of yarn stores, I guess!

Since I never drive in Montreal, I'm not yet well oriented around town. I got off the cab and looked around, then laughed to myself when I found the restaurant "Joe Beef" that my friend took me to in January. It's a great restaurant -- but very hard to get a table.

Mouliné fils de qualité is on the next block. Very small, but well stocked and cozy. Big end-of-season sale was going on, but I was the only customer. I went around and around in the store so many times. The kind owner let me be. Got some angra, and some muted green superwash. My friend has asked me to knit "socks in sage color." I hope my definition of sage green matches hers.

Maybe it's because of being in East Coast, but there were lots of European brands. The skein with the wooly sheep on the label is English. And the light lettuce green is my very first Phildar. I also bought some yarns from Norway -- Garnstudio. I can't read the ball band. Yeah.

I have a lot of thinking to do about my work -- I knit while I think (I knit, therefore I am?) I plan to finish my mom's dancing socks this weekend. Perhaps I'll do so under the falling petals of the cherry tree, to make up for the missed flower season.

Birthdays and another FO

First of all, I want to say thanks to Tamami for some yummy yarn that she gave me for my birthday which included a skein of Tofutsies and a skein of beautiful purple Schaeffer yarn. I'm currently looking for a pattern for the Schaeffer yarn, and for the Tofutsies I may do the Broadripple pattern that Tamami is so fond of. Huguette also gave me some wonderful gifts for my birthday including Socks that Rock yarn that I am currently using to make socks (what a surprise). You knitters are too good to me! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Speaking of birthdays, it's Huguette's birthday tomorrow. I'd post a picture of her, but I'm sure that she'd kill me. Happy Birthday Huguette!

Any my final comment this morning is that I finished my grandmother's shawl - thanks to crochet help from Huguette. I sent it off without even taking a picture. Thankfully my grandmother's friend is a little familiar with technology so she snapped a shot of Grandma in the shawl and sent it to my phone. The quality isn't great, but here it is:


The yarn used was Artyarns Supermerino. No pattern, just a lot of YO's and k2tog's.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Flower Season

I start feeling sad when the cherry blossom season arrives.

Cherry blossoms have a special place in our hearts. When we say "Flower," it means cherry blossoms. When they are in bloom, I dread the time that passes so quickly, taking the flowers with it -- I feel like I should be standing below a cherry tree, admiring the flowers for every second of their lives.

We have a cherry tree in our backyard. It bears blossoms later than the other trees around, and it's whiter. Every year I grow more and more affection for it. I think it's the most beautiful cherry tree, although I'm afraid that it may not be a real cherry. Just don't tell me it isn't; because it would still be my cherry tree.

When the petals start covering the ground, I grieve.

I have been trying to go to Japan during the flower season for the last five years, and every year I fail. It's always about work. Someday I am going to regret it.

I'm knitting another Broadripple socks in Knitpicks Dancing. This is going to go to my mom.

My mom turned 71 this year. I know this would be a bit on the "young" side for her (especially in Japan), but I decided that this colorway is perfect. She started taking a ballet class, and she just sent me a photo from her dance recital... and she was in a tutu! (Calm down, a long tutu.) I'm so proud of her. It seems so appropriate that I knit a pair of lacy socks for her in "Dancing" yarn.

I love this yarn! It's stretchy and soft. Very nice to knit. It's really too bad that Knitpicks discontinued it.

I've been itching to knit a vest for myself, but can't find a good pattern that would go well with yarn in my stash. It can only mean one thing. I need more yarn!!

1,000th Visitor!

Before anyone entered the "When will we have the 1,000th visitor?" contest, we've just had her visit! It was much sooner than I thought.


Visitor's Time: Mar 5 2007 2:35:29 pm
Visit Number: 1,000

This person's ISP is Verizon, and she uses English version of Windows XP, and Firefox.


Erin, is it you?


Thank you for those who visited our blog so far! We've had visitors from all over the world. Keep coming!



Erin, Huguette and Liz -- thanks for the souveniers from Stitches! You shouldn't have :-) I love them. My stash containers are now too full to close. I'm in trouble.


Spring is here. My cherry tree started to blossom. I'm afraid that I will be in Montreal again when it's in full bloom.... Even the thought of missing the blossoms for work is killing me.

Christmas Finished Object

Hello everyone. Erin here...I'm actually posting for the second time in a week. Yes, I'll give you a minute to get over the shock of it.

I know, I know...this is late. REALLY late. However, I wanted to post pictures of a feather and fan stole that I made as a Christmas present for my mother. I didn't finish it by Christmas, so I put it under the Christmas tree in a box but still on the needles. I was happy she at least got to open a gift on Christmas and that I could finally knit on it in front of her. Mom kept joking with me that I would still be knitting on it the next time she came to visit. However, I did finish it before she left.

With this project I really learned my lesson about buying enough yarn for a project. The problem was that I bought the yarn with another project in mind. Anyway, I bought more yarn that turned out to be much lighter in color and spent too much money by the end, but Mom's worth it. I hope she gets some use out of this stole.

Yarn: Artyarns Ultramerino 6 in colorway 123
Size: 2' wide by 7' long

By the way, the extra yarn that was too light became a pair of socks for me. I love the socks, but have not photographed them. Will post pics of the socks in about 2 months!!

Thanks to Tamami for trying to host knit night this past Friday. It didn't work out as well as we had hoped, but I had a great time. Tamami gave me some very yummy yarn for my birthday. I can't wait to use it!

Hopefully next knit night we can do the planned charity knitting.

"Washing Life" 3

We took a hike to the waterfall at Vichy Springs Resort property. Supposed to be an easy, mostly flat hike.
The path ran alongside the bubbling brook. How long has it been since you listened to the soothing sound of the creek? I can't even remember...


Spotted a little creature. Can you tell where he is?

And another. In fact, we spotted many of these black salamanders on the trail. Mitch said "they must be fambily (family)."

The trail was pretty unstable and difficult at times, but Mitch handled it very well. At the end, we had to give up before we got to the waterfall -- but we still had fun. I kept thinking about my childhood memories -- there were small creek and a pond near my elementary school. We often played in the water (and mud) catching crayfish. I hope my son will get to make similar memories.

We found another trail on the hill.

After a nice hike, we were all hungry!

Next day we said bye-bye to one of the most beautiful places we've visited. I thoroughly enjoyed the long weekend -- the problem is that it wasn't long enough!

On the way out of the city of Ukiah, we of course made a stop at the yarn shop -- Heidi's Yarn Haven. Mitch came in to show off his hat that I knitted for him, getting compliments as he usually does at any yarn store. The lady at the store told us about Mendocino Fiber Festival -- I think it's in September. This year for sure we are going!

My recent acquisitions --


The left is what I bought at Heidi's Yarn Haven, Mountain Colors hand painted yarn. Middle -- the first yarn I got at DeStash; Three Waters Farm hand painted yarn. The right -- my handspun, Bubble Gum!

I'm so proud of this handspun. I think I did a good job.



What to knit? I keep looking for small projects to do with my handspun -- just too little to do anything other than socks and scarves. I should try to spin in larger quantity.

I need another vacation!

Stitches West

The Stitches West conference was nearby in Santa Clara this weekend, and three of us made it to the market for purchasing our favorite item - yarn. It was yarnatopia, yarnville, yarn, yarn, yarn everywhere in addition to other knitting and crochet related items!! I wanted to take a million pictures, but unfortunately they didn't allow photography - bummer. I was at the convention center when the doors opened at 10. I had my ticket and cash in hand. I took a specific amount of cash to spend and then that was it...no more was to be spent. Huguette and Liz were making their way south but would not arrive for another hour and 20 minutes. They called me to tell me to go ahead without them. Don't they know me well enough by now? Me, wait? For them? When there's yarn to be fondled? What were they thinking? Of course I went ahead without them. In fact, I think that I was fondling yarn when they called to tell me not to wait. Not even 5 minutes had passed when a big chunk of my cash was flowing freely from my hands. It was crazy! I had the best time, but missed experiencing it with my friends. I found all kinds of yarn that I can't get easily in my town. By the time that Huguette and Liz arrived, I had already used all my cash and whipped out my credit card twice in order to buy more. I definitely went over my limit. However, I vow that this is the last yarn purchase until September when there will be another conference in Oakland. (Ok, let's really see how long that will last!)

We had the best time looking all around at the goodies. Liz took quite a while before she purchased any yarn, but she did good. She found what she called "Happy Yarn". Huguette found lots of yarn. I was exhausted and found a place to sit and knit for a while. Liz and Huguette left their bags with me and went forth to buy, buy, buy. I had fun waiting to see who would return and with what. It was almost like a yarn treasure hunt. Before we left Huguette purchased enough beautiful, soft, luxurious alpaca yarn to make a sweater. I can't wait to see it in progress! We made one attempt to leave, but just before going through the door we realized that we had to go back. We heard some specific sock yarn calling our names. It was just whispering to us as we decided to leave, but Huguette and I could hear it yelling our names before we reached the Exit. Our second attempt to extract ourselves from the ultimate yarn shop was successful. We headed to the Hyatt hotel next door to eat. We were tired, thirsty, hungry and high on yarn fumes! Here are our purchases:

First, Liz and her Happy Yarn

Next, Huguette (she won the prize for most yarn purchased)


Then there is myself (Erin) with my purchases:




I have that "MINE, ALL MINE" look on my face. I can't wait to start using all this wonderful yarn!

We missed you Tamami!

"Washing Life" Trip 2, and Mystery Dye

I just had to get this fiber at Navarro River Knits in Fort Bragg.

Can you guess what it is? Merino/Polwarth/Possum blend from New Zealand. It's very soft and nice to spin. The lady at the store said that possums in New Zealand are different from what we have here -- cuter, but abundant and they eat everything up. So, they round them up and make yarn...

Just can't get enough of the sunset in Fort Bragg. I'd love to have stayed longer there, but had couldn't get the room more than one night. So we headed out to the next destination -- Vichy Springs in Ukiah.

Mitch: "Are we going back to number two and number one?" Me: "No, we are going somewhere else. We may get some different numbers this time." Mitch: "But I like number two and number one."

On the way out of Fort Bragg, we saw the railway for Skunk Train. I was hoping that we could get on it, but they don't run during the winter. We are going to have to come back when it's running.

Checked in at Vichy Springs Resort. We were all surprised to find out that the room number was twenty one again! It made Mitch happy.

The place is quiet (other than the annoying noises from the nearby shooting range), and serene. Trees, creek, hills and paths that are laid between the cabins. Outside baths. Most of the trees on the property are covered with lichens. Oh yeah.

No TVs. So, we spent a lot of time soaking in the carbonated baths, walking, knitting (for me) and playing Nintendo (boys).

It was unusually warm on the day we arrived, but the second day was quite windy. I picked up a lot of "found" lichens. Mostly beard lichens.

I didn't realize that beard lichens are actually like nets, like an intricate knitted lace. Intriguing. Most of the lichens I collected during the trip is this kind, but I am not sure what color beard lichens are supposed to produce. The jar I got going on fermenting beard lichen is not yet showing any strong color....

Seems that I hit the limit for the photos again. This is really annoying! I have resized and decreased the color depths of the photos to make them smaller in size. I've cleared the IE cache. Tried force loading the photos. Nothing works! If anyone knows how to fix this, please let me know!

I'm closing the Mystery Dye contest! Unfortunately, no one hit the answer I was hoping for, but Liz came the closest -- actually her answer "cranberry tea" is what I used to dye this wool. What actually dyed the wool is hibiscus (actually the main ingredient of Bigelow cranberry tea). So, "hibiscus tea" would have been the bull's eye. Since Liz did get the product name, she wins the contest!

I have a new contest. When do we get our 1,000th visitor to our blog? As of today at 23:20 PST, we have 894 visitors. We've been getting average of 12 visitors a day this week. Name the date and time (PST) we hit 1,000, and whoever came closest wins. The prize will be a knitting magazine -- what kind (or which issue) is undecided -- could well be one in foreign language!