KoolAid Roll Call

From the left:

Grape Illusion

Orange

Tamarind

*see below*

Mango

Pineapple

Lemonade

Arctic Green Apple

Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade

Berry Blue

Grape

Slammin' Strawberry Kiwi

Soarin' Strawberry Lemonade

Swirlin' Strawberry Starfruit

Pink Lemonade

Jamaica

Strawberry

Cherry

Blastin' Berry Cherry

Tropical Punch

* this was the result when I'd finished all the packets and thought that the water still looked a little coloured, so I dumped in one final, last piece of felt*

Time for some colour

My goodness, my feet have hardly touched the ground in the last couple of weeks, but finally, I'm getting my head above water and set aside this afternoon for some "me time". I just received the parcel of wool felt I'd ordered some time ago and armed with a bag full of different Kool-aid flavours, I set to and began to dye.

I began by soaking the felt in a bowl of detergent for a while, to wet it thoroughly.

To begin with I used the microwave method. Dissolved a packet of Kool-aid in a small amount of water, added the wet felt, and cooked on high until the water was clear. I soon discovered that it was taking rather longer in the microwave than it normally does on the hob, so I put a kettle on to boil and did the rest in a saucepan. Same procedure - dissolve the powder, dilute with boiling water and add the felt. Stir a little and boil until the water is clear, about 5 mins maximum.

Rinsed in cold water and hung the dyed felt to dry, pegging the empty packet on the felt so that I have a record of which flavour dyed which colour. Interesting to note that the colour of the packet doesn't always indicate the colour of the dye.

And for once, I remembered that using the "invisible" kool-aid wasn't sensible.

What a week!

This is the most hectic week I've had in ages: Mark's been in New York, having fun with friends and hearing great performances of music by his favourite Joachim Raff. I've been home, running here and there to meetings, all of which somehow involve my transporting great quantities of "stuff" in my car - computer equipment, bags of yarn and charity knitting, parcels of calendars and diaries and on one journey, overnight stuff. The days have been full, I've enjoyed going from one thing to another but I will be pleased when my diary suddenly empties after a conference this weekend coming up.

So in the odd free half hour here and there, what do I do but gather a few things from the garden and put a kind of arrangement on the table to make me feel like I'm still keeping it all together at home. It began witha few conkers I collected from the Waitrose car park, but needed a bit more and a bit more...

Of course, after only a couple of hours indoors, the conkers went very dull and lost their appeal so I replaced them with a few cobnuts I'd bought. So, the conker in the picture is a Penkridge treasure, as is the little crab apple. Aren't they fantastic? (even if it does scratch the furniture!) 

Clapotis finished

I finished the clapotis scarf the other night, but until now, haven't had time to blog about it. I followed the pattern exactly, made no changes and was appreciative of Liz's tip to download the Excel "Clapotis Row by Row" chart from the Clapotis Knitalong group to use. Thanks Liz!

The yarn is yummy - soft and lightweight with just the right amount of drape. It's Great Adirondack's Sireno and I knitted on 3.75 needles, which seemed comfortable.

I'm pleased with the end result, more so now I've blocked it. I don't think I'd knit it again, however, as I found it rather boring to knit. Took me a while to get into the flow, and then, once I had, I was bored.

Shame, because it really is a very attractive scarf and I think I'll wear it lots.

Stroud Maternity Matters - the people agree

A while back I posted a piece about the plight of our local midwife-led maternity hospital, which was under threat of closure in spite of immense local and national support. Yesterday, following a lengthy consultation, we received the news that it will stay open.

Women in Stroud are so fortunate to have such an excellent facility in the community.