Maybe you have heard me “talk” of my friend Trish Bloom, the designer of the Bloom Shawl (free pattern on Knitty) and the Panes Bag. (I have several Bloom Shawls (most I knit myself, but also a solid purple one that Diana knit for me), and own one Panes Bag that my friend Teresa L. knit for me in a bag exchange at my guild a few years ago.) I adore the Bloom Shawl. The only thing that would make it better would be if *I* had designed it, sigh….

Trish’s Ravelry username is “BloominKnitiot” as is her blogspot blog. We stay in touch through the Internet, as she lives over an hour from me.

We connect at times in Lansing, usually at Threadbear Fiberarts, and I have yet to see the shop where she works, Labor of Love in Romeo, MI. We plan to schedule a polymer clay button class there sometime this year, and I look forward to that!

Trish sent me this photo as her contribution to the “Knit Spring into Existence” group project. I am flattered that she has chosen a yarn I hand-dyed (to the specifications of a knit-along group who got first dibs on that colorway, and made me promise not to repeat it again). It’s my TipToe Sockyarn, with more colors applied than usual. A sort of sherbet rainbow which is called “Midday Garden.” (No, that colorway is no longer available, though I have seven colorways currently available, from flammegarn/almost solid to multicolors.)

If you have a Ravelry account, you can go read details of the sock design on Trish’s project page. In any case, I think that this project in particular is inviting flowers (appropriate from a woman whose last name is Bloom). I’m ready.

Oh, I can not resist sharing this wonderful photo of my Multicolor brushed-mohair Bloom Shawl with optional crochet edge. I wore this shawl SO much… until I accidentally cut the edge with scissors. I still have it but have not found the courage to try and repair it. A repair will be hard because the fabric is so transparent (knit on size 15 needles). I have enough of this yarn in multicolored magenta/fuschia to make another. In my spare time? But this color is perfect for me and I’m sick over the loss. Beautiful, isn’t it?

This post is for the knitters within driving distance of Lansing, Michigan. Sorry to my out-of-area readers… I do appreciate you but you probably should skip this post and come back soon for the next one.

I never seem to finalize a class schedule. I tend to think I need to wait until it’s all final until I can announce. However, this is not going to happen this month, I’m afraid.

Some of you already know some of what I’m going to announce here, because you may be on the e-newsletter lists for the shops where I teach. I am adding classes all the time, but I’m going to tell you about the ones coming up in the next few weeks.

Tuesday, April 1 (tomorrow) 6pm-8pm	Threadbear Fiberarts	Darn that Sock – The long-term socknitters out there know that tossing out a beloved handknit sock is heartbreaking. LynnH will present two different ways of repairing a worn sock, depending on how worn the fabric is. Bring handknit socks in need of repair, and a small Chibi or other blunt needle with large eye. LynnH will bring a few spares in case you have none at this time.
Thursdays, April 3 & 24, May 8 6pm-8pm	Rae’s Yarn Boutique	ZigBagZ: Maxi Collection – Lynn’s new hit pattern using lots of color but not lots of fussing. Make a strong felted project bag. The BiggieZig is a large purse-substitute bag, and the BurlyZig is a project bag which can handle a sweater or a good portion of an afghan in progress. Lynn will guide you through color choices, combining Noro Kureyon self-striping yarns with solid-colored contrast yarns. These bags stand up to real use and will look great for a long time.
Saturday, April 12 Noon-4pm	Yarn Garden of Charlotte, MI	Perfect Hug Shawl – If you need a shawl that does not fall off your shoulders, this design in three variations stays put because it is shaped like a rainbow. There is even a Goddess-sized version for up to size 5X. A great gift, this is fast and easy, and does not take much yarn. Try your lumpy-bumpy first handspun! Good if you want to break away from scarves, or you want a quick knit with just a little bit of variety to keep boredom at bay.

This schedule is a bit light, for one because a few classes with many sessions are already started. In addition, I’m preparing for the Habibi Dancers’ annual concert which will be Saturday, April 19 at the Hannah Center Auditorium in East Lansing. We have a lot of extra rehearsals in the weeks before the show, and that is cutting in to my teaching (and singing) schedule(s) for a while.

At least it looks like Brian and I will get a day or two as a “spring vacation” in between classes and rehearsals. At one point we had planned 5 days out of state. At this point it looks like maybe we will go to Ann Arbor for one day (it’s about an hour away) and maybe Chicago for an overnight (not quite 4 hours away), with a dance rehearsal day in the middle.

After being sick for most of February, I have had to schedule/reschedule classes, plus there is now an unexpected Saturday rehearsal.. We are making lemonade and will call it two vacations, even if short and local.

I hope some of you will join me for these classes! We always have a great time.

Leeanne chose some springlike yarn (it looks like it belongs in my own stash, it’s so like my favorite spring colors), for her first sock project. She reports that this yarn felt like a spring-into-existence colorway. The socks are still in planning stages… but then again, so is spring.

‘Nette lives in Canada, north of me, and she probably needs spring to come forth even more than I do. She knit this spring-enticing hat and shared it for the “Knit Spring into Existence” project.

Thanks for the smile, ‘Nette! This hat is definitely ColorJoy, I’d say!

Susan in California contributed three photographs she took on the way to Yosemite National Park, in my “create spring into existence” project. I am having a less than chipper day, but the photos help me a bit. How could I resist these sunny images???

Thank you for these wonderful images, Susan! It’s good to know that it’s spring (or springlike) somewhere right now. We got a bunch of snow yesterday again, it will be a while before we see daffodils, tulips, poppies or their friends. I figure we will get some violets within a few weeks so I’m holding out for them.

I’ve said here before… I’m not very fond of cooking, but I love to eat. I like cleaning the kitchen afterward even less than the cooking part. However, last weekend I was a wild woman in that kitchen. I made several extra meals and froze them. I experimented with baked goods, sometimes very successfully and once very poorly (it looked pretty, anyway).

But when all is said and done, the only thing better than eating the dinner I made, is looking at the beautiful colors of my dishes coming out of the (half-sized) dishwasher. I’ve done 3 loads in 4 days… but this particular scene just made me happy. (Hmmm, look at those colors, am I cooking spring into existence here?)

My Interior Designer friend Kath told me years ago (when I wanted to buy a set of turquoise dishes as my only dishes after my divorce) “Lynn, go for it!” She figured if I loved that color as much as I do, I’d continually enjoy having dishes that color. She could not have been more right.

So I took her advice to heart. If I love the color of something, and it’s an item I need, I go for that color rather than a safe neutral (which is always available). On the top rack is a frying pan I got at Marshalls a few weeks back, and it is the nicest pan I have had in years (maybe ever). And it’s spring green!!!

The color makes me smile even when I’m a bit grumpy from “having to cook again.” Never mind that sometimes what I make is significantly better than most restaurant food. And food I cook doesn’t have hidden ingredients that might make me feel crummy. Cooking at home is the answer most of the time, and for good reason. The colors reward me as I work.

I have said it before… if you wait for “big deals” to make you happy, you will wait a long time. If you can find little things (like this load of pretty-colored dishes) to make you smile, your life can be very fulfilling. And you will have a heck of a lot more happy little things than big deals, relatively regularly, you know?

I found myself answering a post on the Socknitters email list, about using easter egg dyes for dyeing yarn. Someone in the UK couldn’t find the easter egg dyes, so I piped in about other ways to dye with food-grade colors.

For the record, this does not work on cotton or plant fiber. It does work with protein fibers such as wool, mohair, alpaca and other animal fur; silk, and nylon which is a synthetic that acts like wool for dyeing purposes (although it does not take dye as well as animal fiber, in my experience). Other synthetics such as polyester and acrylic are very hard to dye in a home setting, they are typically colored in solution before the fibers are created in the factory.

If you are dyeing yarn it needs to be able to absorb dye on all surfaces. This means dyeing in a commercially-wound ball or skein will result in the center yarn not taking color. Wrap around your forearm or a chair, to make a large loop. Secure ends loosely (a tight knot makes a tie-dye where it’s white under the knot). Use a few pieces of yarn to tie the loop/hank loosely (most dyers/spinners tie it in a figure-8 shape through the strands).

Then soak the yarn for at least a half hour in warm-not-hot water with a little detergent or soap in it (this helps break the surface tension and allow water into the fiber). When ready to dye, press the fiber gently between clean towels and proceed.

This is what I wrote to the UK member of Socknitters:

Cake frosting dyes are no doubt something you *can* find? You can use those with vinegar and they come in more colors than egg dyes, as well. It’s all “food-grade dye” and you can use any of them with some vinegar (mild food-grade acid).

In the US and Canada we also have “Kool Aid” and other powdered drink mixes which contain dye, flavor and citric acid, so they do not need vinegar as do other food colorings. Of course, it can be hard in some areas to find the drink mix packaged without sugar (in tiny powder packets), and it again comes in very limited colors (the US purple is very disappointing/grayish, Canadian purple is like reddish-plum).

Here you can get only a few colors of liquid food coloring dyes, but the cake decorating dyes come in small gel packages in lots of colors. I’m in love with the turquoise Wilton’s dye, along with a spring green. Beautiful. I know there are other companies making frosting dyes, but Wiltons is the brand I find most often.

The goal is to put dye, acid and heat upon your animal-fiber yarn, and allow enough time for the dye to bond with the yarn. Assuming you did not use more dye than can be bonded with that amount of fiber, usually in 45 minutes or so you will have dyed wool and **totally clear** water. This is called exhausting the dye.

Many folks dabbling in food dyes do not know this part and stop too soon because they are eager to get on with it. (They also may be more familiar with cotton dyes which never exhaust and must be rinsed after dyeing.) When I dye yarn professionally (with commercial acid dyes), I leave the steaming hot wool covered in towels to keep heat in, overnight or at least until it comes to room temperature. This really makes a difference to the washfastness of the product. Color, Acid, Heat, Time. These are the four elements to a good dye experience.

Note: after I posted this I’ve had more questions and correspondence with many folks. It turns out that frosting dyes are not a gel but an oil-base, at least some of them. I never experienced any trouble with the oiliness and I expect that is because I soak my yarn in water with Dawn hand-Dishwashing liquid (a very strong grease-cutting product). If you have any problems with getting this particular coloring agent to work into the wool, try a little more soap or detergent.

Someone asked if the yarn has to go into a large pot with dye dissolved evenly, or if the dyes can be squirted/painted/poured onto the skein. Either works but do be careful to not put too much dye on it if you want color to stay in particular areas. After soaking you can use a salad spinner or the spin cycle of your washer to remove most of the water from the yarn. Then put it on a safe surface (Saran Wrap works, or a glass cooking pan) and apply dye as you like. Press the yarn to distribute the color better, and steam or microwave.

Someone asked about how long to time the microwave. This is a dangerous question, if I were to answer in minutes. I have two microwaves and one is gentle, one mean. You can burn fiber if you do it too much, so do take care and watch, especially when you are inexperienced. I always put a vessel of water in the back corner of my microwave to sort of be a “heat sink” and take the extra heat if the fiber dries out. This I do after one spectacular disaster with silk (silk burns quickly, maybe because it does not hold as much water as wool).

The ideal is to hold it at just under boiling, for about 45 minutes. In my dyeing microwave, this means heating it for anywhere from 1 to 5 minutes depending on how much yarn I am working with (I often dye several pounds at once), then letting it sit for a while, turn the pan the yarn is in (if there is no carousel in the microwave), then zap it again, then rest, then zap. Rest longer than you zap, maybe 10 minutes of resting between 3 minute heat cycles. Be sure it’s hot but not burning. Too hot and your yarn will degrade, especially if it has nylon in it.

May you find something fun to play with…

ChezCarla in Florida is the first to send photos in my spring group concept. She had some freshwater pearls and Tennessee River Stone beads, and decided to bead her spring into existence.

Here are the pearls:

Here is the necklace using those pearls:

Here are the stone beads:

Here is a necklace and earrings from those beads:

Carla, thanks for playing! You inspire me. I must confess I found that I “had to” finish my wintry super-warm alpaca/wool socks (pair #160) before I started on spring. Now I need to dig through and see what inspires me, to join my own project!

My project will definitely be from fingering-weight (sockweight) yarn in greens. I am thinking right now either Colinette Jitterbug wristwarmers, or super-fine alpaca-blend socks. Both yarns are gorgeous.

But first I must finish taxes. Then I get a reward, I get to knit spring into existence with the others who are playing this little game.

Sue sent some wonderful photos to support the spring project, and I’ll share those later in the week. Now, back to taxes.

I just got a promotional email from Ellen Doster of the Motor City Sidestrokers. She handles a few performance spots in the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak.

This is a fun, funky area which has changed a lot since I first visited there… a few years ago, I found a decades-old bakery with truly homemade pies, a block from a funky coffee shop, Mongolian Barbecue and a resale shop with bowling shirts for $75. I hope the bakery is still around…

Anyway, Brian and I (The Fabulous Heftones) are playing the Royal Oak Flea Market (in the Farmers’ Market building) this upcoming Sunday. The folks we know who have played here say it is wonderful, so we are really looking forward to it.

And what Ellen wrote? I have enough ego to love it:

Sunday, March 30 The Royal Oak Farmers Market 11:00am-1:00pm

The Fabulous Heftones make their debut performance at the Market. This duo harkens back to a much simpler time when couples wooed, spooned, fawned and fretted over each other. Their Tin Pan Alley music is happily old-fashioned…

…Brian’s ukelele prowess is unbeatable; Lynn drives the music forward with her bass and sweet harmonies. They “sell” it with their mutual moon-eyes and you can’t help but smile.

Join the treasure-hunting marketeers at the Market Cafe for a stroll down memory lane. www.myspace.com/fabulousheftones

Royal Oak Farmers/Flea Market
316 E. Eleven Mile Road
Royal Oak, MI

Some of my readers live in that general vicinity. I’d love to see you come out and say hello!

I don’t take enough pictures during my CityKidz Knit! program. I’m so busy answering questions for two full hours, there is no time to think of photographs. It is sort of amazing, they are so busy learning new things every single week.

Last week we had some extra special knitting. This first photo is a 4th grade boy who wanted to make something on circular needles. He determined to make a hat for his younger brother (a toddler if I get it right). It was so stretchy that he was able to wear it himself for this photograph.

First he started on circular needles, knitting back and forth as if he had 2 needles, to make a non-rolling garter fabric edge. Then we joined into a tube and he knit a while for the body of the hat. And then we started to decrease for the top.

The decreases required double-pointed needles given the resources of the room. This boy was alternately very impressed with himself (working with 6 needles on one hat, actually knitting with only 2 but it looked impressive), and afraid of this new thing that looked like it might be hard enough he could mess up. Or so it appeared that was the issue, from my vantage point.

He said his heart was pounding during that last inch or so. I told him “you rock” and did admit it looked hard but reminded him that he was doing well even if it looked scary.

He worked on this hat for many weeks, a difficult thing for a child to do. I had promised him that he would finish the hat that week, in the 2 hours we had together. Unfortunately he had to wait for me a few times because of the other big deal in the room (more later) which also took my time. So at the end I told him I’d finish the last 2 rounds for him and get it all put together.

I did 2 rounds of decreases and then finished the hat. He does know how to work ends in, but I had promised a finished item and I really needed to make good on that. He is capable of doing another hat without me doing a stitch. It’s a LOT of stitches for a kid of that age, though, and I am not sure he wants to do something that “big” for a while.

The reason he had competition for my time, was that three of my girls were learning how to follow a pattern. Actually, another of my boys (an older child than most of my kids) asked if he could learn to follow a pattern, last week.

After showing them the wonderful knitted heart that Priscilla gifted me with at Rae’s grand reopening open house (see photo), we determined that making one of the MochiMochiLand.com hearts, would be perfect. (Free pattern here.) It takes me (experienced knitter) 45 minutes to make a heart, start to finish. They figured it would be a great gift for a Grandma.

So this week the boy who had requested this project in the first place, did not make it. But three girls decided to dive in without him. Some knew how to purl, some did not. Some knew how to decrease, some did not. All of them were at least working on the first heart lobe’s decreases when they left. One girl finished one side of the heart and had started a second.

My plan is, if the kids bring me a finished heart or they finish one in class, I will take photos and send them to Anna H., who is the designer of the heart pattern we are using. Anna and I have corresponded about this pattern already, and she loves to hear from folks who like her work. Of course!

The last photo here is one I took a few weeks ago. I tell you, sometimes I have over a dozen kids knitting at one time. Sometimes that is delightful fun and sometimes it pushes me. I think in this case, being pushed is good for me. At least, I feel that way after I’ve gone home and thought about it!

This was Thursday night after dark:

This was Saturday around noon:

Thursday I found daffodil shoots several inches high with yellow buds showing. Friday morning, the little snow in photo #1 was all the snow in our yard (and the pile it represents used to be almost as tall as my car). Friday during our performance at Foods For Living (2-4pm) it went from no snow to an inch or more. By Saturday morning, it really looked like 5 inches (~11cm) on the front windshield of the bug. Ho, Ho, Ho!

I have over 200 photos I took last week and before, in case I had time to show you. If I even try to slog through much of that, I am going to drown in past information.

For now, I have to say that I am delighted to really feel well again. Finally. We sang at Foods for Living on Friday for 2 hours. Then we spent a while filling up a cart with groceries. We came home and stuffed them into our rather small food storage area. I made significantly wonderful Swiss Chard with onion and tomato as the highlight of dinner that night.

Saturday we played at Rendezvous by the Grand in Old Town Lansing (MI) and that was more fun (of a totally different sort). The building was once an early-1900s bank with mezzanine and huge tall windows, rounded at the top. Gorgeous.

At one point I was singing “Till There Was You” (written by Meredith Willson , from the show Music Man/1957… many people know it from the Beatles), and the room was rather quiet and actually paying attention to our music. (This being a “night spot” I would not expect this level of attention.) I really enjoyed hearing the acoustics of the building at the moment, which totally make a good moment better.

My voice is really doing great after all that illness for all that time. I have not felt this in control of my “instrument” in a while. And there we were, singing to friends and new fans… and the room was still, and my voice was resonating in a two-story turn of the century building, and we were playing our hearts out. Well, this is one reason I sing. It was magic.

And the people who came out… thank every one of you. Doug and Cynthia came first, then Libby and Chris and Darby, folks from the Dagwood’s Tuesday open mic clan, a crowd of employees from Elderly Instruments (where Brian works, just around the corner and down one block).

Surely at this point I have waited too long to post and I’m forgetting someone, but it’s not at all intentional. Libby came around to give me the nicest of all compliments and I will not forget that. It was just a lovely time. Just wonderful.

And with that I’ll sign off and make other things fit into a different post.

Photos: None of us, it’s sort of hard to take pictures of ourselves while singing.

Stage (with Scratch & Sniff performing) showing vast tall windows. The Well-Fed Kids, not standing very still in their enthusiasm (you should HEAR these guys and their vocal harmonies, they are wonderful). Scratch & Sniff (Phil Wintermute and Paul Bennett) up close and personal and with odd-colored stage lighting. Cynthia with crowd behind her… Cynthia is such a friend (she’s a knitter as well as a music person) and she usually looks more bubbly than this (but here she was paying attention to the music).

Cynthia and I dress somewhat alike and wear our hair in braids often, and are about the same size. People often confuse us. In fact, once I saw a video of contra dance where someone thought C. was me, and I was confused myself. I finally figured out it couldn’t be me (given that I could not see the dancer’s face) because she was wearing clothes I did not recognize. Too Funny! I love having this energy-creating person in my life, she is a joy to me.

Vicki/KnittingDragonflies has tagged me… in a meme to share 7 random (or weird) facts about me.

Actually, she tagged me on February 7, the day I was so sick with the influenza/nausea that I was trying not to breathe or move at all. I totally missed the tag until today.

So here it goes. I am choosing to share color memories. Some people have no memories of this sort, so I’m thinking they are “weird” facts. I’ve wanted to share a few of these stories, anyway. It is great that they fit together well here.

1. My first memory is of color. I was about 2 years old (according to my mother who can piece together my story into the fact we lived in Minneapolis at the time). We walked to the house of friends who had many children, mostly older than me. They had a game which was a set of rings in sort of a coliseum shape, where you put marbles on the top ring and players took turns pushing the rings back and forth.

   The goal (I found later) was to make the opponents’ marbles go to the bottom faster than yours.I was too small to understand the rules but I did understand that pushing the rings would move marbles down one round at a time. But the important thing, the reason I remember, is because of the blue and yellow alternating rings of color on the toy. It was so beautiful!

   They would not allow me to play with it because I was too small. I was crushed. It was about color!!!

2. As a child I was delighted when told I had been born in “Golden Valley” Minnesota. It’s a suburb of Minneapolis, but it sounded so beautiful to me. And, one more time, it was about color.
3. When I was very young and playing house, either alone down in my basement or with others, we had to make up names for ourselves. I would insist on being the Mommy (what fights we would have when the first-borns would not give up on being the only Mommy in the game). And being a mommy meant that I needed a different name.

   I would work through possible last names. Black? Boring. Brown or White? Boring, too. Gray? Same. Green? OK, that sounded much nicer. So I always said my last name was Green. It did not occur to me that I could choose a last name that was NOT also a color.

4. When I was in elementary school, the mid-to-late 1960’s in small-town Michigan, the color purple was something of a a joke to my father. He would sometimes say he was the Purple People eater. Or he’d say while we were waiting for a railroad train to cross the road, that THIS one surely would have a purple caboose at the end. He was always wrong but we would hope.

   Now, my father never hit us but he loved to tell stories and make them sound extreme and dramatic. So somehow one time he said if we were bad during the year, Santa would bring us a Purple Whip for our stockings (rather than coal). I don’t know why he started this, but once he started he did not back down on it.

   So, one Christmas season we all went as a family (Mom/Dad, Eric and I) to the five and dime store to get small presents for each other’s stockings. And I went with Mom to get presents for Dad and Eric, then we switched parents. And while I was with Dad, the store lady approached Mom and Eric to ask whether she could help them.

   Mind you… at this time, about 1964, it was nearly impossible to find any commercial item in the color purple. No clothing, no pens/pencils, trinkets, nothing. These days many girls say it’s their favorite color but in those days girl clothing came in standard pastels, red and pink but not purple.

   So when the lady came up to ask, Eric (toddler of age 4) asked “Do you have a purple whip?” My mom was floored and embarrassed. So Mom explained Dad’a joke to the lady. And the only thing they could find in the entire store under a dollar, with purple on it, was a washcloth with a tiny purple stripe and wider lavender stripes, on white. So it would have to do.

   Mom had to clue Dad in to the joke ahead of time. Dad laughed as he should (and it was truly funny). And Eric was very pleased with himself. Clever. He still is.

5. I always wanted to play flute as a child. I remember the first time I saw/heard one, Mrs. Gibbs/Music teacher brought one to school and played us records (vinyl) of music played on flute. I was in love.

   I do love the sound of a flute, but I think now that the shiny factor was also very big. I ended up playing Clarinet for 5 years, Dad did not want me on flute (long story). I never loved clarinet.

   Now I realize why. It was black. Flute is shiny. Now, a bad-sounding flute also sounds much nicer than a bad-sounding clarinet, which did not help things. But I remember I also loved banjos at the time and I knew almost nothing about them other than they were silver-bodied. Shiny.

6. I have always loved the colors I still love. My fave colors are turquoise, fuschia/magenta, purple, and hot green. I also sometimes wear bright cobalt blue, emerald green, black (my colors look great against black) and very occasionally red.

   As a small child, my favorite crayons were in the same range of colors I love now. I have a drawing I made when learning to print, and the colors I chose were magenta and purple crayon (see image). I am not sure where the magenta came from, as typically in our house we had “only” 8 colors of crayons.

7. My first knitting project was in 5th grade, in Mr. Johnson’s class (1969). I remember it was a Barbie pink headband with many “hiccups.” Who knows what happed to that project, but my mom amazingly took me all the way to East Lansing to get more yarn after I made that.

   I was allowed to (only) choose 2 colors. It was painful choosing two out of all the choices. They had small skeins of acrylic Red Heart, and I took home one skein in turquoise (go figure) and one in emerald green.

   To this day, when I see those two colors near one another I go back to the day I chose them out of all the possible choices, at the five and dime (same one as the purple story above).

I am not big on choosing people for a meme, but if anyone wants to play who is reading this, please do go right ahead and dive in!

That is news enough for me today. Spring is officially here, even if it is supposed to snow tonight.

We are preparing to go sing right now, and then we sing again tomorrow. My voice is doing very well after so much illness, I am delighted. There is nothing like singing when the whole body supports the sound!

I have lots and lots of photos taken but none processed for web yet. One is an 8-year-old boy wearing a hat he knit… in the round, on circular needles and then Double-Pointed Needles. Very Cool! I also have photos from Carla for the create-spring-into-existence project.
Photos soon, I hope. Until then, maybe I will see a few of you at our concerts.