Knitting and Books

I'm not dead yet, but the cold has turned into a sinus infection. That hasn't stopped the knitting though!

I'm still working on my log cabin squares. Those little things are quite addictive. I didn't think that I would enjoy working on them quite as much as I have. Here's how they look as of a few minutes ago:

I love how the yarn is working up on these squares. They're actually a little brighter in real life. I'm not sure why the camera is dulling the colors so much. They won't all have red in them unfortunately (I like lots of red), but that might not be a bad thing. Hints of red will actually stand out more in the finished product.

Also, I've been stalking my mailman again. This is some of the goodies that he brought me:

Not real impressed with the Speed Knitting book, but it would be good for beginners. I'll but that back on my list to swap out. I can't recommend the Knitter's Book of finishing Techniques enough though. It is a fantastic book that I'm excited about adding to my library. It's got tons of tips/techniques in it that makes your knitting look less "homemade" and more "handmade".

I'm still waiting on a pair of shoes, but I don't know whether to stalk the mailman or the UPS man for those. Right now stalking around my front door is all I'm good for. I just don't have the energy to do much else.

I hab a code

I've been sidelined by a cold. I feel like my head is going to explode. The worst part about it is that it's messing with my equilibrium. It's gotten into my inner ear and I'm so dizzy because of it.

This past weekend was so relaxing. Two of the three guys in the house went camping. One at a time is so much easier to cope with, even if it is the most difficult of the three. He was a dream to be around though and my blood pressure was kept to a minimum. I managed to finish one square and got two thirds of the way finished with another for my log cabin blanket. I also got a little spinning in as well.

Everything was fine until this cold sank in. Now everything has come to a screeching halt. There's been little crafty stuff going on today. It's all I can do to just break up the fights between the kids as they happen.

People aren't supposed to get colds in the summer are they? It's just not fair that you should feel miserable on nice warm days. Someone should declare it illegal for cold germs to be out and about during the sunny months. I'd do it, but I think I'm going to go lay back down now.

Some Old, Some New

My computer is working against me today. I've tried posting to the blog three different times and something has gone wrong every damn time. So, fourth time's a charm, right?

Okay, before I get to the new, let's talk old stuff:

1. I did a massive dyeing project a couple of weeks/months ago and realized that I never showed you my color wheel that I made from the project. So, without further ado, here ya go:

I also found two colors that I missed while dyeing the roving. The purple and the green are not true and broke easily, so the colors that they gave are really odd sometimes. But that's okay and that is why this testing was conducted, so that I would have a better grasp on what the dyes would do straight out of the box. The center three are not primaries, they are secondary colors. Please don't think that I haven't a clue as to how it is supposed to look. I just got lazy about putting the three in the center when I already have them placed in the circle.

I am now very thankful to have all of the big pile of roving off of my table in my dining room/office/craft room. I'm sure it won't be long until some other crap moves in to take it's place on the table.

2. I'm still working on my first log cabin square. This would have been finished by now except that I noticed that I had picked up stitches on the wrong side of two different parts. :sigh: By the way, the Debbie Mumm Traditions yarn does not like to be ripped out. It's not fun.

On to something new:

I got the urge to dye some roving again. As a matter of fact, I wanted to play with 4 ounces of Falkland and I wanted to do some natural dyeing with tea. I have dyed fabrics with tea and yarn, but I wanted to try for a deeper color this time.

So I soaked the Falkland in water with some Alum and Cream of Tartar for a couple of hours while I took the Eldest to a gym class.


While that was going on, I got out my huge enamel pot and filled it with water and about a bajillion tea bags that I had lying around from an old tea party that I gave a few years ago. Yes, I said years. While I drink tea, I don't usually drink it caffeinated and at this point it would be too stale to drink anyway. I also added some ammonia to the mix (smells godawful now) in order to try and get a deeper richer color out of the tea.


The wool is now soaking and I'll probably let it soak overnight. I can't wait to see what color brown that I get out of it.

If it works out, it'll be one of the first few items that I will list in my new Etsy store. I'll throw out a link to it when it goes up. See ya tomorrow!

New Project on the Needles

In an effort not to kill my children yesterday (Dear God, Please let school start again soon!), I picked up a new knitting project. It had to be one where there was minimal counting, thus minimal thought. As I began knitting it, I had to force my fingers not to clutch the project. I think they were dreaming of wringing two little necks.

The problem is that I have one kid who is a tattler (The Eldest who always follows the rules) and one (The Youngest who never follows rules) that likes to just irritate the other. Well, yesterday it all irritated me. When I was done with them, they thought the Hammer of God had fallen on them. I was so incredibly steamed. They tried to start again this morning and then thought better of it when I lit into them again. There was no way I was going to go grocery shopping and listen to that the entire time.

So. A new project came into being. I chose The Log Cabin Afghan. Super easy project that is good for beginners and for using up scraps. Except I don't have scraps, but I do have some yarn that I bought initially for a top and hated it. It's not a great yarn, but it is pretty and soft and will be good for an afghan. It's Debbie Mumm Traditions that I purchased from JoAnn's. It's an acrylic/wool blend that is corespun and difficult to work with because of it. The stuff on the outside likes to slide up the core of the yarn and bunch up. You have to hold it very loosely to keep it from bunching.

This is what the square looks like so far:


I have no idea how big I want this to be or what who it is going to be for. I just knew that it had to be simple and you don't get anymore simple than garter stitch. I have made one change in the pattern so far. I did squares one and two together continuously since I am working from only one skein at a time. I'm not changing colors, the yarn does that just fine on it's own. The color changes in this yarn remind me a great deal of Noro Kureyon. This square is about two thirds finished. It looks like I might get 2 to 3 squares (approx. 9" square) per skein.

This will be a long term project. It'll be great for the beach vacation we have planned in July, something to do in the cottage when it gets too hot to be outside.

Rampant Stupidity

Flax Gel Report - Wonderful stuff! Love how it makes my curls look. Next time I will make a larger batch since I need to use quite a bit of it for my hair. But since it only takes 10 minutes, it won't be a problem. The only problem I have with the whole thing is it needing to be kept in the fridge. I know some people add vitamin E oil to help as a preservative, but I'm wondering if a pinch of citric acid would work as well. Just a thought.

Obviously last night was "Mad Scientist" night in my kitchen. I made a face spritz (I called it a spritz because of the container it's in. It could also be called a toner.) too that I like. I boiled some water (measured by how large the container was that I was going to be putting it in) and added one aspirin, some yarrow from my garden and some lavender from there as well. We'll see how well it works in the long run. Anything to help with adult acne will be very welcome.

But there were issues in making this. Evidently stupidity was running rampant on the part of the person cooking up all this stuff. I won't say who it was, you'll just have to use your imagination for that, but she poured some really hot water into a plastic bottle that imploded on the counter. Made a big mess, but it smelled nice. So I had to do the whole face spritz making thing twice! I might add a few drops of essential oil in there just for fun next time.

But I'm tellin' ya: Rampant stupidity was plaguing the kitchen last night.

Flax

I've been experimenting with flax seeds lately. Flax is filled with omega-3 fatty acids and is very high in fiber. Basically, it's good for you so go eat it, right? Yes (and I'll have a yummy recipe for you in a sec), but did you also know that you can make a hair gel with it that is fantastic for curly hair?

I didn't either. So today I decided to experiment, cuz I'm crazy that way and have mega naturally curly hair.

The basic recipe for the gel is as follows:

1 cup boiling water
2 Tbsp. flax seeds

Boil together for 10 minutes or until gel forms and then strain out seeds (difficult). Store in fridge and use as needed.

What I did:

1/2 cup water
1 Tbsp ground flax seeds
1 small tea bag - purchased online years ago, can't remember where exactly. You can get them at health food stores to make your own teas. Very handy to have.

Put the ground flax in the tea bag and ironed closed. Boiled it in the water for 10 minutes and allowed to cool in fridge. May need to boil a little longer in order to get it to gel.

I haven't tried it in my hair yet. Tomorrow when I wash my hair and get the current product out of it, I'll give you a report. If it works the way I've been told, it will be way cheaper than buying hair gel.



Now for the really good stuff:

Let me preface this recipe by saying that I hate healthy cookie recipes. I can't stand them. Yuck, Yuckitty, Yuck. But...

I found one that I absolutely adore. Guess what? Has flax in it. Even better? I call these my skinny cookies. I can eat one or two of these and make my sweet tooth happy and it fills me up so that I don't eat about forty in one sitting. Yay!

The recipe comes from the book "Beauty Secrets of the Bible". If you are into making your own natural beauty products, this book has some neat stuff in it as well as this recipe.

(Adapted by me)BSB Chocolate Chip Flaxseed Cookies:

1/2 cup butter or margarine (original recipe called for butter substitute. I used what I had which was margarine)
1/2 cup ground flaxseed
3/4 brown sugar - I used dark since that is what I had on hand
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tbsp vanilla
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/4 all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 12oz pkg dark chocolate chips (Semi-sweet works too, just not quite as healthy)

Cream butter, sugar and flaxseeds together. Add egg and vanilla. I then slowly added the salt, soda and flour. Then add the chocolate chips. Drop Tbsp size portions onto cookie sheet. These do not spread while baking so you can put a lot onto one sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes.

These are fantastic. I can't say enough about how wonderful this recipe is. I think I need to go make more, right now.

FYI

Just a quick FYI - I'm off at the lake for the week. See ya on Monday!

You know it's a good day...

When...

1. You get to sleep a little late because not only is school out, but the hubby has the day off because it's a holiday and can keep the kids away long enough for you to get some much needed beauty rest.

2. You finally finish a knitting project:

Clever Little Shawl
Yarn: my handspun
Needles: 10.5 US
Began: 4/25/09
Completed: 5/25/98
Super easy and exceedingly clever construction. Doesn't need a shawl pin to stay on and leaves your hands free. Love it!

3. And best of all, I found a swim suit that I like. Hides what needs hiding and adds what needs adding to. Goes for $77 online. I paid $19.99 at Ross.

Little Nuthin Links

Another day of little "nuthins" since I have nuthin of real value to show you or report.

I was messing around on Digg this morning (I adore this site) and found a few amusing links for ya:

1. And you just thought those nursery rhymes were safe to tell your children. History is a wonderful thing.

2. I've been to a couple of these (Edinburgh Castle - been there twice, and the Tower of London) and I cheated that I didn't see any ghosts.

3. Just for the sweet tooth. From smitten kitchen, a fantastic food blog.

4. You know you feel like this when that one certain child pushes your very last button.

Speaking of that child, we attended an honors day ceremony for his older brother and while I was sitting around wasting time I pointed the camera at the Youngest trying to get a cute pic of him. First I got this:

and then he immediately made this face:

Misc. Nuthins

For those who care to know:

I am not a "grill", I am a Mommy. Apparently, Mommies are not allowed to be girls.


We also keep food in the "re-frissa-bator"

and the favorite color of the minute around here is "Orangen".

The News

Knitting News: I've only got like three repeats to go on my Clever Little Shawl to go. Woohoo!

Carding/Spinning News: I'm still carding that damn brown stuff together. It's taking forever. I have about 4 more batts to go before the next step of carding. The first step was to mix the different fibers together. The next step consists of splitting the batts and carding them together randomly in order to get the most homogeneous mix that I can get without overcarding. I could probably skip that step, but I don't want to.

I'm going to have around 20 batts that are approximately 2 ounces a piece. If you think that I'm complaining now, you just wait until the spinning all starts. I'm planning a 3 ply dk weight yarn and will be mixing and matching bobbins then like I'm mixing and matching batts now. This could take all year to complete at this rate.

Kitchen renovation news: Haven't done a thing since the last report. Oh wait, I did order new knobs and pulls and they came in today. This was super inexpensive which is the only way I was going to get new ones. I had a total of 31 knobs to replace. There are a crap load of cabinets and drawers in my kitchen, it's a fairly big kitchen. I went to ebuilderdirect.com and ordered these beautiful birdcage style oil rubbed bronze knobs and pulls and got them for about $1.50 a piece. Click on the link to look at the ones I picked. Love 'em! They look fantastic with the chandelier we already have in the kitchen.

I'm hoping to get back into the primering/painting stuff sometime tomorrow or Friday. Now that the knobs are here I have more incentive to get this stuff done!

That's all the news I've got today. Well, other than the kids and I just had a serious discussion about poor attitudes, not minding, and how I'm not their maid. Won't be the last time that discussion hits the fan. Gee, I can't wait 'til the teenage years. (go back and read that sentence again, and just imagine it dripping heavily with sarcasm.)

I'd go have an alcoholic beverage thanks to my children, but I don't think that would go over well when I have to go to church choir practice tonight, do you?

Spelling Bee

I had grand intentions of getting so much done today, I really did. But it just wasn't meant to be. I bet that I had six different things on the menu today. Oh well.

What I did do was to attend the Second Grade Spelling Bee at the Eldest's school. Guess who came in 2nd place in the entire second grade?

The bad thing is, his final word was juvenile. Well, that wasn't so bad really. I know adults that can't spell that word. What was bad was that he spelled his word correctly and the judges didn't hear it. To top it off, the word that the winner got: mountain. I'm sorry, but these two words are not even in the same league, in my opinion. However, the Eldest doesn't know it yet, but this is a blessing in disguise.

I figure this is an excellent lesson for him on how the world isn't fair and how not to get all caught up in it, so that's what we discussed on the way home. Funny thing is, I remember having a very similar incident happen to me in elementary school and we discussed that as well.

I love it when life delivers these lessons into my hands so that I can teach them more effectively. This is something that every child needs to learn early: that not everyone gets to win all the time and the quicker they learn this, the better. I hate the way people try and make things "fair" for the young kids where "everybody is a winner". The philosophy may look good on paper, but in reality I think today's society is setting up it's children to to hate themselves later in life when they do fail to achieve something. Sooner or later it will happen as an adult and they won't have those early experiences at losing to fall back on.

It's so tough to see that lesson driven home though. A bunch of these kids left the stage in tears. The tension was so thick up there and it was really hard to watch. It really wasn't a big deal, they won't be competing with anyone else. It's just preparation for the next couple of years of spelling bees. But, oh boy, were they nervous.

Yes, I want my children to succeed, but I want them to lose occasionally too, just to prepare them for life's little surprises later on in their adult lives. There's a reason the phrase "tough love" was coined. If more people indulged in a little tough love with their kids and let them lose sometimes, maybe some of those overachiever kids that make the news when they failed at something might have been able to adjust better.

EDITED: To correct my own spelling. How ironic is that? I misspelled overachiever. Wouldn't you just know it?

Ongoing Projects

I apologize for flaking and missing three days of blogging. I was hip deep into either the kitchen restoration or recovering from the kitchen restoration. It's not done, far from it. There's still lots to do, but I'm only working on it now a couple of times a week. It'll take a while.

I did get some carding done - still working on my brown sweater yarn project. I've begun carding all the separate fibers together and came up with the percentages. There's 2.5 pounds of fiber, 39% is brown and black alpaca, 59% blend of Corriedale and domestic wools and 2% nylon. It's so incredibly soft. I'd show you pics of it, but it doesn't look much different from the last one I took of the fiber. There's only so many ways you can photograph brown batts of fiber.

My two other ongoing projects had some "big" stuff happen though:

1. The Eldest ended up being the third highest reader of the entire school for the year and got to go to the Scholastic Book warehouse where he was congratulated, fed and given $10 bucks to shop. You'd think he would get books, but oh no, not him. He came home with computer games. Yep, I'm officially raising a computer geek.

2. The Youngest got his first gymnastics medal! Here he is with his best friend on the podium:

Ta-Da!

Dear So and So

Dear People Who Owned My House Before Me,

I can understand your bold usage of sea foam green on the walls in the dining room, the chartreuse green on the bathroom walls and the magenta on the cabinets. I mean, after all, even though I painted over those horrible colors, to each his own, right? There's a bit of gypsy blood in all of us lovers of color, or why else would I have painted my downstairs half bath a gorgeous, yet subdued, brick red?

What I can't understand, not even a little bit, was your approach to so many other things in this house. Why, oh why, did you decide that half-assed solutions to decorating and building were good ideas? That back deck? Not up to code I'm afraid. The hack job that you did when you put up a ceiling fan? You know, the one that fell out of the ceiling? That was also not up to code by the way.

And let's not forget your shoddy job with wallpaper in the bathrooms and kitchen. I suffered through your hideous taste in the paper that you picked. I also suffered through peeling off three layers of the foul stuff in the bathroom and two in the kitchen. I'm afraid the third layer had to remain on the walls in the kitchen as you never used primer on the walls before you laid the paper down. I learned that lesson from the bathroom.
I've repainted your kitchen walls and they look much nicer now. I'm still working on the wainscoting area, but things are going well now. I've gone from the disastrous wall paper above to this:

And finally, to this:

The white is just a primer (like you should have used), another color will soon be added that will go well with the wall color. It will be arriving asap.

But I'm afraid what makes me furious is the fact that you painted over the kitchen cabinets without priming them as well. I began working with them in an effort to repaint them and guess what? Your paint is now peeling off way too easily and is messing up my efforts. I will probably have to use paint stripper on all of the cabinets and their accompanying doors.

I have kids. Kids and paint stripper don't mix well. What the hell were you thinking? Could you not have done all these jobs correctly from the beginning and thereby paving the way for the next family to decorate their home in the colors and manner of their own choosing? Would that really have been such a stretch?

Are you now doing this to your current abode? I shudder to think what the next family will have to do to repair your imaginative use of color and your handywork, I really do.

And furthermore, do you know how much time you have sucked away from my knitting, spinning and dyework? I sadly think not. May you forevermore rot in the hell of your own wallpaper, paint and shoddy repairs of your own devising.

Sincerely,

Shea

A unique fiber artist's work

I love it when a fiber artist takes their work just a little bit farther than the rest of us and creates something really unique. This piece of work has no real purpose, but it is almost mesmerizing to watch:

Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.

Carding Central

I've set myself a long term spinning/knitting project. It started a while back with my quest for a dark brown next to the skin soft fiber. I finally achieved it by carding together some Corriedale (which I thought would never get used since it was over processed), some black/brown domestic wool and some black and brown alpaca.

All these fibers were given to me in vastly different shapes and styles. The Corriedale was a raw fleece, the alpaca was in a very thin roving form and the domestic wool, from the sheep shed studio, was in a compacted top form.

I new that I wanted these fibers to be equally distributed throughout the batts that I was going to make, so I ran each of them separately through my carder. This is the stage that I'm at now:


There is approximately 2.4 pounds of fiber here, should be plenty for a sweater for me. Basically what I'm planning on doing is taking sections off of each of the different kinds of batts and blending them together to form new batts. This is the only way that I could come up with that was clean and uniform. I'll figure out the percentages of the mix of fibers later.

I'm going to be going for a DK weight yarn with this. I'd like this to be a three ply yarn and I know that I will need approximately 1400 yards for the sweater that I'm planning to make with this. We'll see what happens.

In other news, I have finnished approximately 8.5 repeats of the Clever Little Shawl. Only 5.5 repeats to go!


I'm off to clean the house so that I can mess it up again with kitchen renovation this weekend! Have a great weekend!

Chalk One Up For Me

It's difficult with a strong willed child to find the right threat to use in public that will be effective in controlling the child's behavior and that won't get you turned over to the police for child abuse. I think that I might have lucked onto one. It works too, at least for now.

A friend has always threatened to call the police on her kids. All she has to do is pick up the phone and pretend to dial and they straighten right up. I haven't been quite as lucky with child number 2 in this respect. Nothing much phases him. Until now, that is.

We took a trip to the local Sherwin Williams store today and even though he was told "The Rules" before we got out of the car, upon walking through the front door he immediately began acting like a wild heathen. There's a reason I don't take him out in public very often.

Now I can threaten to spank his little behind, but I don't want to use it as a threat on every occasion. Sometimes it's nice to have a backup threat. So here he was being the heathen and I simply leaned down to him and said, "If you don't behave I'm taking you to the zoo to live with the monkeys." The results were very satisfactory, I must say. His eyes got big, he stood very still and said, "But I don't want to live with the monkeys" to which I responded, "then you better behave, huh?". Not only did he quit being wild, but no one called the cops on me either. Chalk one up for the Mommy.

By the way, does anyone else's cat use their spinning wheel treadle for a pillow?

Rootbeer

Today, just for fun, the kids and I decided to make some root beer. Now, firmenting drinks is not my forte. As a matter of fact, there was that one time in college that I tried it, but I don't think I'll share the full results of what happened with you. Just suffice it to say that there were lots of dark stains on my walls.

So. We used this recipe and some Zatarin's Rootbeer extract and a gallon jug. I have since moved it to the ugliest room in the house. That way if it explodes, I won't care. It'll just be another excuse to redo that room. BTW, I was careful to make sure that I had the liters to gallons ratios correct before mixing it all up.

The Youngest has been bawling since then. He was under the impression that, like Kool-aid, as soon as you mix it, you can drink it. He was so disappointed! Now for the next four days or so, I get to try and explain to him why he can't drink it yet. Oh boy.


In the knitting world, I completed two more repeats of the shawl. I now have half of it completed. This is taking a while for me to finish. I have several things going on at once. Spinning - I had to finish making the yarn. Kitchen Renovation - Forever Ongoing since I'm mostly doing this myself. Knitting - when I can. Family - Trying to squeeze them in after all of the above (A knitter's gotta have her priorities after all.) :)

Whirlwind of Inactivity

This weekend was a whirlwind of inactivity.

I did spin up another 250 yds of yarn for my Clever Little Shawl project though. I now have 640 yds of yarn which should be plenty to finish the shawl. Here's how the shawl looks at this point:


I could have done more on it, but I just got lazy this weekend. I just didn't want to do much of anything. My house is now showing it too.

The kids and I also finished emptying out the Easter dye boxes - all fifty of them. I now have 75 boxes worth of dye tablets to use. Yeah! We put all of the other stuff in the boxes into ziploc bags and I'm offering them up on Craigslist to any preschool teacher that can use them. There are the metal dipping sticks, cardboard memorty game, stickers, etc. Too much to just throw away. Some clever teacher can use up every bit of this stuff with their kids next year.

Here's some of my help:



Also wanted to show you something else. My Azeleas, they asploded:

They were more than half as tall as the peach tree next to them before the storms this weekend. Now they look pitiful and sickly. They were just beaten to a pulp by the hard rains that we had. But boy were they beautiful on this day!

What's wrong with me?

I think Madness has overtaken me. This morning started off like any other day, get up, eat, get kids ready, take kid to school, etc. Normal, boring Mommy crap. Then something happened.

It started when I was looking on Ravelry at the natural dye plants that can be planted in a garden. I knew that I wouldn't do that, but then I remembered reading somewhere about plants that mosquitoes avoid.

Now my whole extended family may keel over on reading this, but guess what I did during naptime today? Planted a tiny flower garden. Not sure what came over me, I must be possessed or something. I am NOT the outdoorsy, garden-y type. That would be my In-Laws who not only possess green thumbs, but every other appendage on their bodies are green as well. They have fantastic gardens. Me? Nope. I hate being outside. So I'm really not sure why I was bitten by the gardening bug on this lovely.

Except for maybe experimentation. I really want to know if some of these plants will help chase away mosquitoes. We'll see, if I don't kill them with neglect from this point on.

The bad thing? They're guaranteed to attract a few bees and bugs and the Youngest is terrified of those. Oh well.

We have very nasty red, thick Georgia clay here. It just about killed me to dig it up and mix it with potting soil and then spread it back out. While doing that, I had to tear out all the nasty wild violets, wild strawberries and chickweed that had taken over the area. I wish I had taken a before pic of it to show you, but it was really nasty.

The only things worth saving were some Spiderwort and some other little herb-y thing my Mother in law gave us years ago. I tried seperating some of that out and replanting it, but I'm not sure if that will live. I'm an optomistic type though, so I'm going to will it to live. Think that'll work?

I planted lavendar, marigolds and some creeping verbain. I have no idea what creeping verbain is, but it said that butterflies like it, so I threw it into the garden as well. Told ya I don't have a clue what I'm doing.

When the Youngest and I went shopping this morning for all the stuffs, you should have heard the fit he pitched about the marigolds. He wanted only the Orangen (his word for orange) ones! He got really mad that I picked out several different types and colors. Usually he's up for variety, but not this time.

So here's the pics of the tiny little beds:

There was very little rhyme or reasoning involved on where I planted things. I just put them where I wanted to and we'll hope for the best.


The huge plant at the corner of the deck area is a Seloeum (sp?). I have no clue how to spell that one right. It's like a big elephant ear. It can't take the winters here, so we have to cart it and it's brother into the garage during that time. It absolutely loves it during the other three seasons though. You can see from the crack that it's busting out of it's pot and needs a new one.

And so now my little garden is planted and watered and I'm very tired, but I'm priding myself on finding yet another way to avoid cleaning the inside of my house. I'm going to go sit and knit now. I'm pooped.

Pineapple Cream Cheese Pie

I'm going to share a tasty recipe with you today. I could tell you that I'm doing this out of the goodness of my own heart and because it's all about giving back and blogging about wonderful things, but it wouldn't be the complete truth. No, blogging about this is more of a way for me to excuse away the gluttony that is caused by a summer pie. So, go make this and I won't feel as guilty about scarfing this pie 'cause all you folks will be scarfing it too. Misery Gluttony loves company.

My sweet fang (way too big to be a tooth) kicked it into high gear today and I had to do something about it. A few weeks ago we had a millionaire/million dollar pie. It was wonderfully sinful. This time I wanted something similar, but without huge chunks of fruit in it. It had to be sweet and tart as well, perfect for spring/summer weather.


Here it is:

Shea's Pineapple Cream Cheese Pie

Ingredients: (makes two pies)

2 graham cracker pie crusts
1 8oz. pkg Philly 1/3 less fat cream cheese
1 small carton cool whip
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 twenty oz. can crushed pineapple
Sprig of mint for garnish (optional)

Cream together the cream cheese and sugar, then add in the lemon juice. Once well blended, add the pineapple. Fold in the cool whip and then pour the contents of the bowl evenly into the two graham cracker pie crusts.

Chill for a couple of hours before serving to allow it to set.

Variations:
1. You can use fat free or regular cream cheese, I just used what I had on hand.
2. Leave out the sugar and use a can of condensed sweet milk instead. I would have done this, but ran out of it. It's truly decadent when you use the condensed sweet milk.

So, now that I have my pie, I need to make the guys in the house a cake. From a cake mix of course, because that's what I have and I'm lazy. This will hopefully divert everyone's attention from the yummy pie that is in the fridge.

By the way and before you point it out, Yes, I know I said I need to lose weight, but I also know that I have zero willpower. So there.

Dye Day

Today was dye day at the House of Shea. Remember the 75 boxes of egg dye that I and my Mom purchased recently? I decided it was high time that we test these for color accuracy and saturation. This literally took half of my day and all of my kitchen to do.

I got out a bag of scrap fiber and the postal scale and measured out bumps that weighed .2 ounces each.


I got out all the glass jars I could find and mixed up my dyes with the vinegar. The directions suggest 1/2 cup water and three tablespoons vinegar per dye tablet. I did some playing around and found that for each .2 oz bump, I would need 1/4 cup of product to get the deep color that I was looking for. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

I set up my table with post it notes on two sides. Top down was yellow, orange, green, red, blue and purple. Left to right was blue, green, yellow, orange, red, purple. Once these were dyed in the microwave (2 min. on and 2 min. resting until dye exhausts) I put them on plates and on the table in their graph position so that I could keep up with what colors were mixed together.



These really don't make sense lined up as they are in this picture. Once they dry I'll be able to set up a color wheel to show you how they turned out.

The colors were not what I expected at all. Purple and Green dye tablets are not at all true. The purple likes to break and is more blue than true purple. The Green is a Teal green and has way too much blue in it. Red, Orange, Yellow and Blue were as expected.

I was looking for more muted colors in some areas and didn't get them at all. I will have to go back and add more complimentary colors into what I already have on the table.

It will be interesting to go back and overdye some of these with browns and grays. I'll either do this with Wilton's or I will break down and get some more Jacquard dyes to do this with.


EDITED TO ADD: There is both Red #40 and Red #3 dyes in these tablets. The box does not say which colors contain which reds. However, the purple kept breaking like crazy, so I guess it's safe to assume it has the red #3 in it. Red #3 can be persnickety at the best of times. It has a problem with acidity. It's not soluble below 6 ph so when the acid, in this case vinegar, is added, it separates and will eventually wash out. Next time I try this, I will add the acid very, very slowly and probably on the stove top over a long period of time and check the results then.

Stitches South Review

This weekend Stitches South hit the Atlanta Galleria. I showed up promptly at 10:00am on Saturday morning to give it the once over. My family and friends looked at me like I had grown two heads. Why in the world would someone give up a Saturday morning to look at yarn?

Well, it was yarn sensory overload, I'll tell ya that much. There was yarn everywhere. It was bright and beautiful. The folks there did a great job of putting everything together. There were giveaways and fashion shows and classes too. I didn't stay for any of those. I was there a total of two hours and one hour of that was spent going back through a second time.

I had only two issues with the whole thing. One, I was by myself which was totally my fault. If I had checked the Ravelry board in time, I might have had a buddy or two.

The second issue was that I expected there to be more vendors in general and at least a few more vendors that sold spinning stuff. This is in no way a criticism of Stitches, just a perception problem on my side. I think I spoiled myself by going to SAFF in October and that was freakin' huge. Fiber did well there, I saw a lot of ladies walking out with it, so maybe they will keep that in mind for the next event.

Some of the vendors at Stitches that I have to write about:

My LYS: The Whole Nine Yarns from Woodstock, GA. As always, a fabulous setup and the people, Karyn (not sure I spelled her name correctly) and Jenna, were super.

For Fiber: I met the KnitWitch finally and bought some fiber from her. If you need any good knitting videos, you can get them thru her site or just go to Youtube and type in Knitwitch. She's got some great ones that have been very useful to me in the past. She said that she's planning on doing a few more soon. I grabbed some 50/50 merino/alpaca fiber (4 oz.) from her.

I also met the owner of Creatively Dyed Yarn. She was just too cute for words and gave me a free Ravelry button to wear. From her, I bought 8oz. of Seawool fiber - 70%wool, 30% seacell. It's amazingly soft and I can't wait to spin this up.

Both of those gals have some wonderfully dyed yarn and fiber! Here's a pic of the fiber:


I didn't buy one skein of yarn. I figured that I spent way too much of my budget as it was. Not that I could resist, I mean, look just look at that gorgeous fiber! Now I just have to figure out a project to spin yarn for.

I've also started another project. This one is Carol's Clever Little Shawl. I've made it through two of the fourteen repeats so far:

This is from my handspun. I've already got 393 yards spun and some more to be spun for this project. I didn't want to wait until it was all spun before I started it on it. I have no relationship with the word patience!

I'm in love with this pattern. The lady who wrote it studied a shawl from the 1800's and figured out how to reverse engineer it. It's simple and lovely . I really wanted a rustic (and rusty) look to this shawl, so I made sure that my yarn was thick/thin and rusty in color.

All in all, it was a lovely weekend.

Today was mine for the victory, finally

There are some days that you can't win with children, but on other days, triumph worms it's way through.

Most days around here, if the kids are in another room together, all I hear are fights, screams, crying or all of the above. They don't get along most of the time. When the Youngest came about, the Eldest was uber-jealous and has continued his resentment to this day. He ignores the Youngest, which just makes the little guy turn to trying to get negative attention by hitting or throwing something at the elder sibling. I can't tell you how much fun this is to live with. Why did I want children? What was I thinking? I mean really now.

Today though. I got them both and it was quite satisfying. Did I yell? Knock some heads together? Swat them on the backside? Oh no.

They were supposed to be watching Transformers (cartoon, not movie) together. Both were on the couch. Eldest, determined to ignore Youngest. Youngest, determined to get attention from Eldest. Normal stuff. I heard yelling and complaining. Turns out the little guy decided to try and sit on the older, or push him off the couch, or something along those lines.

I jumped up, started yelling and then stopped abruptly. I had a much better idea. I sat/laid down on them both on the couch. You should have seen those two faces. It was absolutely priceless. Shock and delight at the same time! It turned into a giant tickle fest, with me as the tickler.

I haven't heard one fight since then.

Sometimes it's good to win one.

Newsday

Good news! The painting is no longer pink!

In other news, I finally got a pic of my Owls Sweater for you:


Best I could do without my 8 year old photographer.

Bad news: The Youngest got sent to the principal's office today. Granted, he's three years old. But you would think after a year of going to school he would know what's expected of him or at least to know not to slug the teacher again. Jeez, how embarrassing.

You're gonna love this one

You are not going to believe what happened to me today.

I started a kitchen renovation project last year. It is still happening, albeit slowly. I tore off two layers of wallpaper and have put primer over the third layer of wallpaper. I left that layer on because the idiots that built this house didn't put prime on the walls before applying the wallpaper. If I tried to take that layer off, it would make a huge mess of the sheetrock.

So I have one coat of primer on the walls. I decided that I would paint the ceiling before adding another coat of primer to the walls.

Here's where things began to go wrong. I made the major mistake of listening to the hubby. His father had given him some "so-called" ceiling paint. "Here, have some ceiling paint." The hubby didn't question any of this, just told me "Here, use this for the ceiling."

So I opened it. I told him over the phone, "It's pink. The same color ice pink that's on your mother's front bedroom walls."

What he said: "It's supposed to be colored like that. It's one of those that will fade to white as it dries so that you'll know if you've missed any spots on the ceiling."

Okay. Believed him. Very stupid mistake on my part. Spent about an hour painting the ceiling during the Youngest's naptime.

Guess what? It's dry now and my kitchen ceiling is now a very pretty ice pink. My Mom, Dad and best friend think this is, of course, hilarious. If I don't have a hubby and father in law by tomorrow, you'll know that I've killed them.

I've already told the hubby he will be painting the ceiling tonight. Know what I told him? "When the paint dries, if you see any pink, you'll know you've missed a spot."

Cable Technique

Process Knitter: This type of knitter is not worried about when or even if a project is ever completed, but simply enjoys the process of knitting.

Project Knitter: This type of knitter totally wants to wear that cute little chic sweater.

I believe that on most days I fall into the second category.

However, not on my current project.


I will almost always let a mistake slide or fudge the pattern in some way to fix it in order to get to the finished product so that I can wear it without a care that there may be a mistake hidden somewhere in the mix of things. I'm being a rebel to myself and not doing that this time around. I want this project to be right in order to publish it. I have ripped back this project so many times my yarn is becoming more and more frayed as time goes on.

I'm continuing to take my fingerless mitt project from design sketch to finished project. There have so far been eleventy bajillion steps in doing so.


The problems have been numerous.

One of the things that was really bugging me yesterday was the look of the cables. It had nothing to do with pattern and everything to do with technique. As the cables would cross and then attach themselves to the next stitch, the one that was attaching itself to the next stitch always seemed wonky and larger than it's peers. You may remember me complaining of this once before here.

The problem, it seems was not in tension, but in size. As in that, somehow, the way that I was creating the problem stitches made them use more yarn, thus creating larger loops. I thought that if I increased the tension, really tightened up the stitches, then the problem would go away, disappear forever. Not so. All I did was make the stitches on the next row nearly impossible to complete and still had huge stitches.

I now have the solution to that little problem (thanks to a wonderful person's advice on Ravelry) and a great need to share it with you!

To make neater, tighter, more professional looking cables: Whether going from a purl to a knit or a knit to a purl, it doesn't matter which direction,
Move the yarn to the direction of the stitch that must be made next before taking the stitch you have just made off the left needle.


For example:

You have the following cable stitch layout:

P P K K K K P P - where you are going to be doing a cable with the Ks (which direction they cross is unimportant in this instance.)

1. You would do one purl, move it off the left needle and onto the right. 2. Again, make the next purl, but before taking it off of the left needle, move the yarn to the back, then remove the loop from the left needle to the right.
3. Make your cable up until the last knit stitch.
4. Make the knit stitch, but before moving it off of the left needle, move your yarn forward, then move the loop from the left to the right needle and begin your last two purls.

It is amazing the difference that I've had in my cables since learning this! I'm just shocked and stupified over it. It's like (in my silly mind anyway) you are making a yarn sandwich. You make the stitch, move the yarn so that it sits between the two halves of the stitch (see? a sandwich!) and then move it. The yarn now holds down and shortens the stitch that was causing all the fuss!


Completely Off Topic:

Beware what beautiful trees you plant near your home and driveway. In this case a beautiful Gonzaga Cherry Tree. See the gorgeous carnation-like flowers?


It just might make it snow pink blossoms everywhere and make your home and automobiles look like they've been in a rose parade.

What Happens When...

This is what happens when you leave roving in the washing machine after you spend all that time dyeing it, spinning it and forgetting to take it out and then running a load of heavy bath mats:


It makes great dog dreads too:

Oopsy.

Dyeing and Spinning Day

Yesterday was chock full of dyeing and spinning. I got nothing else done except for making dinner and taking kids to and from school.

Here's what I got busy with:

1. Easter Egg Dye: I had three goals with this project.

a) I wanted to play around with mixing some colors. There's a green that I would really like to have a on a sweater, so I got out the Yellow, Blue and Orange dyes and mixed them up. I put a tablespoon of citric acid and one cup of water in glass containers with the dye tablets.

b) Then, I took out some scraps of roving and made crochet chains with them. I wanted to do a different dye technique where I colored the bumps of the chains. I was going for a mottled effect where I would still have some of the white in the roving showing. In the first chain, I combined one part yellow, one part blue and two parts orange. This ended up giving me a lovely olive color, but not what I wanted. The second chain had one part yellow, one part blue and half a part of orange. Got the perfect green in that one. The last chain had all three colors randomly placed all over it, just for fun.

c) Microwave setting the dye (Mini Tutorial). I put the chains, one at a time in a glass dish that was lined with plastic wrap. I then colored them with the dye and then covered the whole dish with more plastic wrap. Next, I turned the microwave on for two minutes. Let it rest for two minutes. Then repeated until the dye was exhausted. Really simple, but you want to be careful not to cook it for longer than two minutes at a time. You could felt your roving/yarn if you cook it longer. Slower is good and it's always better to be safe than sorry!

The Results (re-chained - they were unchained so that they would dry better):

Moss green on top, Mix in the Middle, Olive on the Bottom

I'm thinking I might mix all of these in one tiny spinning project, just for fun.


2. Second dye Project of the day: Dyeing with Dandelions. I made the kids go out with me and pick a big pile of dandelions. It was great fun until we realized there were tiny little bugs on them. Now, I'm a self confessed hypochondriac. It's not good for us to see tiny bugs that might possibly crawl from our hands to the top of our heads. I'm positive no bugs made it into my hair, but now the top of my head has been itching like crazy for two days! I'll tell you about this project more tomorrow, it's still in process.

3. Spinning Project of the day: Actually, this would be a Plying project. I had two bobbins that needed to be plied and this was not how it turned out, at first.:

This was the second time around. The first time was way over-plied, crunchy hard and mega twisty. I ran it back through the wheel and untwisted quite a bit of it. This is approx. 216 yards, give or take. This is a two ply yarn and was intentionally made thick and then. I want this yarn to be more rustic looking.

I have a bobbin of more plied yarn that needs to be skeined and I've got about 4 more ounces to spin and ply of this stuff. I have a project in mind, but there's no guarantee I'll get enough yardage for it. So, I'm keeping the project under my hat until it's determined whether I'll have enough yarn or not.

Whew! That's it. Now can you see why I didn't get anything else accomplished yesterday?

How I Spent My Morning

I haven't knit anything in, like, four days. I'm starting to get the shakes. My hands have been all twitchy and stuff.

I finished a big project and want to start another. The problem, is that I used up my spare change to buy fiber to spin, so there's no money for yarn. So last night and tonight I will be spinning like crazy to get enough yarn for a medium sized project at least.

Meanwhile, this morning I started opening boxes of Easter Egg dye (25 of them to be exact) and breaking everything down into it's component parts:


I now have 25 of each of the 6 colors that came in the box in separate bags. I also clipped the directions and put one in each of the bags. The directions were interesting because they gave instructions on using different kinds of acids to get different shades of each color. I probably won't pay much attention to these, but it will be nice to have them if I get curious. I ended up with one mixed colors bag. I had one box of PAAS dye that came with 12 different colors in it. Nothing labeled, so telling one from the other was just too much to take. I'll play with those later and figure out what they are the hard way.

Unfortunately, I now have 25 sheets of stickers, 25 sheets of an Easter memory game, 25 sheets of cardboard circle creator thingies and 25 egg dipping tools. There has to be some use for these, doesn't there? I hate throwing these kind of things away. Feels wasteful. The stickers won't be a problem, The Youngest will take care of those, but the rest? If anyone has any crafty ideas on what to do with those, I'm all ears! My Sister In Law is a teacher. Maybe she could use some of those for something.

This afternoon's project will be to dye some wool top in the microwave. I haven't done that before. I'm also going to experiment with mixing some of the egg dye and hand painting it onto the wool. I'm really looking forward to making a big mess in the kitchen. I might, maybe, eventually cook dinner for the family too.

Something Useful for Bloggers

I found a useful site that I thought that I would share with the other bloggers out there. It's called Tracer and it helps protect the content of your site. If anyone copies the content of your site, it basically forces them to give you credit for your work. No more of this copy/paste/change a few words and take credit nonsense! Yeah!

It's free and quick to add this to your blog as well. You register on their site, insert a simple line of script into your html on your blog and you're good to go! Love this.

Believe it or not, I got more than enough time to knit this past weekend. I actually finished the Owls Sweater. It's not blocked yet and I don't have a modeled photo of it yet (fits great, but snug - note to self: block it bigger, lose weight or get another pair of Spanx), but I do have this:

I used glass beads for the eyes. They are not gold in real life. They are red with swirls of gold, green and blue and are stunning to look at. This pic does not do them justice. I tried and tried to get a good one for you today, but the stars were just not aligned right.

This morning I took a trip to Walmart for some 50% off Easter goodies and boy, did I find them. Check it out:
Normally 88 cents a piece - Got 'em for 40 cents a piece. I bought 20 of them. Gotta love a good sale. Have I told you that Sale is one of my favorite words? It ranks right behind the word Free. :) These should color a heck of a lot of roving/yarn. Not pictured: I grabbed some dessert paper plates and napkins for 50 cents a piece, 1 yellow and 1 green. Also, some cute brightly striped kitchen towels for a buck a piece.

Somebody got some fake teeth in his Easter Basket this year:

A face only a mother could love?

Notice the chocolate on his face as well. Boy devoured his chocolate bunny in about three seconds flat.

The Owls are Emerging

It's been deathly quiet here in my abode. My Mom came and got the kids yesterday and they couldn't wait to be away from Mommy and off with their Nanny and PawPaw.

Whoopee! I've managed to pick up the house a tiny bit, go out to dinner, relax, pack, knit, card, and sleep in. Who could ask for more?

The owls are emerging on the sweater.



Since this pic, I've gotten the beginnings of their wee little heads started. My hands are aching a bit. The combination of cables and two yarns held together are really tight and my hands have been working overtime to get the cables completed.

Well, I'm off to the folks to face the little heathens again. Wish me luck. :)

Have a Wonderful Easter Holiday!

A Solution!

A while back a very nice lady that I met through Ravelry gave me some lovely Corriedale fleece. I cleaned it carefully and then dyed it with some Lanaset dyes aiming for a deep brown (came close, but was more a deep plum instead.) Unfortunately, things didn't work out quite well and I despaired of ever getting the chance to have usable fleece. The d*mn fleece had been overprocessed and when I tried hand carding and spinning it, it felt like dry rope in the hand. I tried hand carding some bombyx silk in with it, but it didn't help. So I set it aside a while in disgust until I could decide what to do with it.

After I received my drum carder, I ordered some fiber from Sheep Shed Studio. I got some top that was a deep black and dark brown with a touch of mohair mixed in with it. I picked out as much of the mohair as possible, but it was impossible to remove it all.

I was then hit by an idea. I have some dark brown and some black alpaca in storage. What if I mix it all up? What if I mix the brown/black, the corriedale and the alpaca? I'd then have a sweater's worth of the dark brown that I was looking for.

I wanted to make sure that I have the same amount of all the fibers in each of the batts that I would make. I've been going all scientific-y lately and so, to make life more interesting, I decided to card together the fibers that I have seperately first. Then, it would be easier to divide by weight and would be smoother when fed through the carder with the other fibers.

I spent all of last night carding up the black and brown domestic wool from SSS. Then tackled the dreaded Corriedale. I got three lovely batts of the Corriedale before I quit.

I couldn't wait to see what it would all feel like together and went ahead (before tackling the alpaca batts) and carded up a batt. I really wanted to see if the Corriedale was going to hurt the mix. I had so little faith in that Corriedale, but wow, was the completed batt gorgeous:

Left: black/brown batt, Middle: Corriedale, Right: Both combined w/ alpaca

It feels so soft and silky and is the perfect chestnut brown that has just a touch of sheen thanks to the tiny percentage of mohair. Lovely stuff and it's going to be so drapey.

I still need to finish carding the Corriedale and then start on the alpaca. It won't be finished in the next couple of days due to me going out of town on Thursday evening, but I'll get this at least partially finished next week.

I found time today to attach the sleeves to the Owls sweater and begin on the yoke:


I'm taking this with me this weekend and I'm hoping I'll have time to work on it then.

I can see to blog now!

I had an interesting new experience yesterday. My monitor decided to bug out on me. It would stay on for about 10 minutes and then turn off. Then, when turned back on, would stay on for a total of 1 second (literally) and turn back off again. Repeat the 1 second thing ad nauseaum. Do you know how incredibly difficult it is to write in your blog with this happening?

Today, The whole mess has been rendered moot with a new monitor. Yay! Much less frustrating. Cool thing? Cost me about $30 bucks for an 18.5" widescreen lcd thanks to a nice $75 gift certificate the hubby has been squirreling away from Fry's. Cool huh?

I have been knitting, some. I am almost finished with the second sleeve on the Owls sweater. I fully expected to be finished with this thing weeks ago, but life loves to interrupt our best laid plans. From here, I've got another inch or two on the sleeve and can then begin work on the cool Owl cable on the yoke of the sweater. We'll be heading to the folks again on Thursday evening and I'll take it, but probably won't get much done on it. For some reason, I have the hardest time getting a lot of knitting accomplished there. Of course, I'm taking my carder with me and all my beads, so the knit may get put on the back burner. We'll see.

Why should the kid always get the comfy seat?

Dyeing versus Dying

Children should come with signs from the womb that say: Warning! This cute tiny little apple of your eye will grow to be a not quite as cute, but still cute apple of your eye that carries infectious diseases. You do not even want to know how sick I became on Thursday night. The sick continued up until yesterday evening. It was not fun. It should have come with a warning.

Very late yesterday, I was bit with another bug. While I had gotten past the point of wanting to die, I suddenly wanted to dye. So I did.

I was using Kool-aid and a tiny bit of Wilton's paste for the dyeing and I wanted to try and do things a bit differently than last time.

1. I wanted to be a little more scientific so that I could re-produce the colors later instead of the fly by the seat of my pants method that I usually employ.
2. I also wanted colors that weren't quite so in-your-face clown barfy. I didn't want all neon primary colors, so that took a little thought.



Here's what I did:

I have a whole bag of lumps and bumps of fiber. I got out my digital postal scale and started weighing. Most of the lumps were .2 ounces in weight. One of the lumps was .8 oz and another was 2oz.

I ignored the total amount of water used. I went with the fiber weight versus ounce of dye route.

I heated water in pots on the stove to boiling. If you are using just the kool-aid, you do not need to add citric acid or vinegar to make it color fast. However, if you are using just food coloring, you're going to want to add them. I do not measure this out usually, and I probably use way too much of either because of it. I did put 1 tablespoon in the pot that was going to be used with the Wiltons.

I used Mason jars and glasses for the smaller lumps and the pots for the bigger ones.
Once the water was boiling, I turned if off, filled up my containers about half way, added the dye and walked away until the dye exhausted (the water was clear, the fiber colored.) Then rinsed and dried the fiber. Easy peasy.


I actually took notes! Can't believe it. It's just not like me.

I'm going to show you a pic and then give you my mix of kool-aid and Wilton's so that if you want to produce some of these you can. You'll have to do your own maths to get the ratios correct for the weight of your fiber.



Starting from the right and going clockwise:

Rust - For two ounces of fiber: 2 packetss yellow KoolAid, 1 packet BerryBlue Twist KA, 1.5 tsp Cherry KA, 1/4 tsp Orange Wilton's Food Coloring (paste)

Melon Orange - For .2 oz fiber: 1 tsp Orange Koolaid, 1 3/4 tsp Yellow Koolaid, 1/4 tsp Cherry Koolaid

Mossy Green - For .2 oz fiber: 1 tsp Orange Koolaid, 1/2 tsp Berry Blue Twist Koolaid

Purple - For .8 oz fiber: 1 packet Grape Koolaid

Red: For 1 oz. fiber: 1 packet Fruit Punch Koolaid

Dark Mossy Green: For .2 oz. fiber: 1.5 tsp Orange Koolaid, 1 tsp Berry Blue Twist, 1 tsp Lemonaid Koolaid

(I'm skipping to the almost black here, so bear with me.)

Black: For .2oz fiber: 1/4 tsp. Wilton's Black Paste Food Coloring. let fiber sit in glass jar for 1/2 hour. Put in microwave and cook for 30 sec. Repeat the microwaving every half hour for about 4 times. Then let it sit over night to let it fully exhaust.

Warning: The Black does not give consistent results. It "Breaks". Usually the fiber absorbs the reds first, then the blue. If I had let it sit all night, it would have probably made a truer black. But I couldn't leave well enough alone and added another small bump (about .1 oz) of fiber to it and left it all over night. That small bump ended up being that beautiful blue.

So there ya go. Your mileage may very. For me this was very scientific. For any real scientific and anal-retentive folks, my method may very well send you to the crazy house. :)