need your color ideas

I have seven skeins of some Dale Baby Ull in the stash, but I don't like the color. It looks like toothpaste to me.

I'd like to overdye it. Any suggestions? I'm thinking of using it for some baby knitting, or maybe for some lace knitting for me. I could make socks with it, but 7 skeins is a lot of socks in the same yarn.

Also, does anyone know if there is an online color tool that I could use to figure this out?

maf-ghan update

I'm a bad, bad, friend. I've neglected the Maf-ghan for quite some time. Well, I'm back at it again, and it's almost complete.

I've got all of the squares seamed into two halves. I'm putting a border on the top and the bottom edges, and then I'll seam the halves together and add the side borders.

Mafia, one woolly blanket, coming right up. Just in time for summer.

my virtual refrigerator door

Approximately thirty seconds ago, I finished writing up a semester's worth of work on "service learning and the millennial student." I still have to do some final editing and come up with a better title, but the hardest part is done, and I have until Thursday to finish the rest.

Right when I start wonder why I spend so much time agonizing over my schoolwork, I get back papers with comments like "Excellent job! A joy to read due to your writing style and the perfect balance of summary and analysis." And then I remember that a job worth doing is worth doing perfectly very well. And, hell, I learned a lot along the way.

Thusly, I am off to reward myself with ice cream and a movie.

it's finally springtime!

Just the right time for a new pair of wool socks, right?

These are just a basic pair of socks in Kaffe Fassett Regia sock yarn. I love the colors, and the stripes amuse me. Yes, I am a bit obsessive about matching the stripes. I finished them a week or two ago, and they went right into my drawer for next fall. Details Raveled.

This leaves me with 2 WIPs on the needles -- a secret project and a very large and overdue project nearing completion. I am really, really, really trying to finish both of these projects before starting anything else. Let's see how long that lasts -- I have a rainbow calling my name.

if it's Wednesday, it must be random

Just a few things today ...

1) Have you heard about PopKnits yet? This is a new project from the very talented Steph at Gleek.net. She's launched an online knitting magazine focused on vintage and vintage-inspired styles. Go forth, read, and design! (I'm noodling around with an idea for a baby sweater ...)

2) Want an afghan? Too lazy to knit your own? The lovely ladies at MDK are auctioning one off. Check it out.

3) The countdown has started -- two more weeks of school for the semester, and then two summer classes, and then I'm done with my master's degree! But the next two weeks will be b.u.s.y. -- I have a big research paper to finish, and a take-home exam that I think will be more like a series of short essays. Sigh.

4) I'm knitting something I can't blog about. It is not mindless knitting. There has been frogging. All of this makes for boring blogging.

5) Therefore, I shall find some other kind of image to blog.
Hmmm .... I have a lot of things I should be doing right now. But this is how I feel instead.

clapette

Remember this? Yep, it's that time of the semester again. This time around, it's 15 pages on service-learning and the millennial student.

So, to distract you from the frightening lack of knitting around these parts, let me show you a FO that I eff-ed last week and never blogged - Clapette!

Trust me, I am much happier about this project than the photo above would lead you to believe.

This is the first project that I knit for myself with my own handspun. I bought the fiber at Rhinebeck with the intention of making yarn for a Clapotis, and I am pleasantly surprised that it all worked out as I hoped. I did make a narrower version, more scarf-like than wrap-like, and it's perfect! I even had yarn left over.

More info on Ravelry.

a week, already?

I really thought I had posted more recently. Sigh. I've been spinning and knitting, though. I finished a few batches of fiber.

This is some merino-silk fiber in the Harvest colorway from Spunky Eclectic. It's not a color I would normally pick, but I've been trying to move outside my comfort zone. I got 130+ yards of aran weight yarn. I used the wet-finishing method I described recently. However, when I measured before finishing, I got 160+ yards. That seems like a lot of shrinkage to me. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Or did I just count wrong?

Details Raveled.

And this is some sock yarn, approx 380 yards, 4 oz. Spun from batts from Enchanted Knoll. It's a little less plied than I would like, but not bad. I'm looking forward to knitting with this. Maybe just some simple stockinette socks?

Details Raveled.

babies and puppies

I finished the sweater for Baby K last weekend.

We don't know the gender, so I went with a nice gender neutral brown color. (Thanks for the inspiration, PumpkinMama!)

The sweater closes with three buttons on top.

Three very cute puppy dog buttons! (The K family has a much-loved dog, who joined the family before the birth of their first baby, now 2 1/2. They'll dig the puppies.)

Pattern: Daisy
Yarn: Dive Zenith
Raveled.

I am probably the only person ...

... to knit a sock during a performance by Chuck D.

(This is the before photo. The second sock is about an inch longer now.)

The MLK event on Friday night was great. A wonderful line-up of artists who talked about their work and then read their poetry, performed music, etc.

(Derek Walcott, Sonia Sanchez, Talib Kweli; photo by Allen E. Dines)

I don't know if I've ever read anything by Nikki Giovanni before, but now I really must find one of her books.

I almost didn't go, but this post, plus a colleague who decided to join me, sealed the deal. I'm glad I went. I should do things like this more often.

getting cultured

One of the things I love best about living in the Boston area is that we have so many cultural events and institutions. A world-class art museum, an innovative science museum, a couple of good theater companies, a professional ballet, and an internationally successful orchestra are the best known cultural offerings, but hardly the only ones. Yet, I hardly ever take advantage of all these great things in my own backyard. I think 2008 should be my year to get some culture.

With that in mind, I'm off to hear a poetry reading tonight to commemorate of the 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. Local, free, and I even have parking privileges across the street. No excuse not to go!