Great Britain has a new princess. Isn’t she adorable? DID YOU SEE HER BONNET? And blanket? Those look lovingly handmade to me! I’ll have to go searching the webs to find clear close-ups of them.
And I hope when Kate got home she got to lie down for a while. Public appearance ten hours after giving birth? I would NOT be into that part of having princes and princesses for children.
On another topic – sort of –
Ever since my sister made a delicious root salad using beets and other vegetables I didn’t think I liked, I have been thinking about using beets to dye yarn. So last night I went at it.
I started with about 3 ounces of worsted weight natural colored wool, inherited from Cousin Nancy (I have a HUGE spool of it – pounds, in fact) that I wound into a cake.
This is the spool. It is great for experimenting, and I think I might use it to make myself a garment. Someday.
I chopped up one smallish beet (about the size of a small apple) and a small portion of stems, and cooked them in the crock pot with water and vinegar for about half an hour. Then I plopped in the yarn and let it cook until the beets were white. Really! Chemistry is amazing.
But what I got was yellow yarn. I think it was the stems. I was sad. This was not the amazing pink I was expecting.
So this morning, I am at it again with two beets this time, no stems. So far, I have the pink I was hoping for. Not magenta as I might expect, but as I am starting with yellow yarn, I am just pleased to see pink. Beets still have color, and the water is still violently pink, so I will keep on cooking.
See the beet bits are getting lighter? And the yarn darker? I am getting there!
A is just so pleased that the house smells like beets and vinegar and wet wool. 🙂
Since she went off to play golf with my step dad, I am airing out the house so she will never know how bad it really got.
I’ll let you know how the yarn comes out!
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