It's a little after 6AM. I've been awake since just after 4. I can't sleep. It's not like me at all. I have nights like these once in a blue moon and I had one a few weeks ago. I almost feel as though I might be getting a cold. My eyes were closing, then opening. My mind was wandering in woolly (read yarn/knitting) circles. At half past five, I decided to get up, have a brew and do a few rows and see if that would settle me down. Probably will in time to get up, so I'll be grumpy all day cos I'm tired.
One of the woolly circles I was one was wool dyeing. This has been passing randomly through my head for a short while. For all the dyeing that I used to do, I couldn't remember fully the process, the quantities of dye and fix etc. This made me feel a little dejected. I thought eventually it would come back to me. The thought of trawling the t'internet for info, or for looking for that elusive two back copies of whichever magazine it was that I first used to teach myself to dye with, which I may well have re-homed in the run up to The Move, was not at all appealing.
So lying in bed I slowly remembered that I kept a diary of when I was dyeing - Ker-ching! I remembered that it was a purple book, and kept my fingers crossed that it was in the bureau. It was. I've had half an hour of nostalgic reading. The Diary ran for 6 months. It covered all the things that I dyed using Kool Aid and food colouring, then tailed off. Luckily I wrote down the soak and dye solution quantities. The process came back to me, and I quickly wrote it down at the back of the book for eady reference.
I knew one day my dyeing Mojo would come back. Thankfully! What has kindled the Mojo Return was a good find in the Charity Shop in Cleator Moor. I found a cone of peachy aran yarn for £3. It weighs just over 1.8kg, including the caardboard cone itself. It is not labelled as to what it is. For the life of me I can't remember the tests that you do to tell what yarn is madfe out of, whether it is a natural or man-made substance. I know you can agitate it in your fingers or set light to a bit of it to see how it burns. Mum and I set light to an end of it. It didn't burn or catch fire as such, Mum declared it to be wool.
So my next test of 'Guess What It Is', is to try dyeing it. If this is successful, then the next stage is to test suitability of felting, using the traditional method of knitting a bag then chucking it in the wash machine. I must choose a pattern that will be suitable for felting and non felting.
Am now going to knit a bit. Yesterday at Knit Club, I cast on a Grrlfriend Market Bag using the Ice Bamboo yarn. I've finished the base last night. I know I used to do the sides a certain length, but that is another thing I can't remember. I shall see how I go. Simples.
