Finished the prototype of my very first shawlette design. I still have to fudge the math on the increases a bit to make the base angles a bit more acute, so that it’ll be easier to use as a neckcloth, but overall I’m quite happy with the way it looks:
Humidity was up in the nineties again today. I hung my skeins out to dry anyway, but they’re still damp. The cotton took the dye really well, but on the wool (the four skeins in the back) it’s wasted. I’ll have to redye those skeins.
The gasman was here to change the meter, which makes me very happy, because I repeatedly had to call their emergency number for the old one when it smelled of gas in the vicinity. Hopefully that’s taken care of now.
And in other news my computer suddenly decided to lock me out this morning so that I was reduced to checking mails on the netbook, with no access to my files. The tiger did some open sesame trick, and now I’m back home, but he says he’s a little worried that he doesn’t really know what caused it. There’s a suspicious log entry that points to a small bug in the recently downloaded pattern font causing a domino effect. That kinda sucks, because I’d been hoping to use that, but of course it had to be deinstalled. Hrmph. Well, at least I have my computer back, and will watch with an eagle eye now if anything like that happens again or if it was really related to that font.
I swear, I was. Only it was still a bit cloudy and humid today. Paint wouldn’t have dried well in this weather, right? Aaaaanyway, I had this whole lovely batch of fibre reactive dyes sitting there, waiting patiently to be tried out. And I acquired all these skeins of cotton on Thursday. Right? And besides, I’d been depriving myself of a good yarn dyeing spree ever since we started to tackle the basement. Things just came to a head today. I *had* to dye. Right? Right.
I had nine skeins of something like a fingering or light sport weight of cotton and one large skein of lace weight cotton. I thought I’d use up all my dye on them, but I had lots left over, so I ended up dyeing a handful of sock yarn skeins as well. (I also managed to spot dye the shirt I was wearing and my hands, even though I wore gloves.) So far, the colors look spectacular. If they look that good after the skeins have been rinsed, I’ll be extremely pleased. And I only have to wait until tomorrow to find out. *starts pacing the floor*
Well, I got one trellis done, ready to be mounted as soon as the paint dries. After that it started to pour.
So I spent the day researching pattern makers. Not the colorwork type this time, but the symbol charts for pattern knitting or crochet. There seems to be only one decent one out there, which I might try the demo version of.
But I found a set of symbols for download as a true type font. Four bucks. Very cool. The tiger suggested a vector graphics program for writing the charts, and I must say I like. I have to work my way through one or the other Inkscape tutorial now. Exciting stuff this. I know I get excited about the weirdest things.
There are programs out there to turn pictures into a sort of pixelized version for counting patterns, but the tiger (bless his heart) don’t need no stinking program. He writes his own. Did I mention he rocks? Now I can do my own colorwork charts. :o)
… but much less so.
I finished a lace silk shawl that I’m very happy with. It’s light and airy, and the colors are woodland soothing:
… but it’s very muggy, overcast and stormy looking. I’ve been running around with the hose and watering can to give some emergency relief to those most affected.
We have steaks for another BBQ tonight, but no clue if the weather holds.
I was going to paint the trellises, but frittered the day away on pattern making instead. Computers are such time eaters; it’s scary. Cool stuff, though, designing your own patterns. Maybe more about this later.
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