Warning: Wool in Progress

Where I am at:
Mostly moved into house
Mostly finished PhD
Mostly making (a little) money

So...Time to get back to the wool! The past 24 hours have resulted in the dying of 3 different things.
First, I experimented with madder for the first time to dye some lovely white/brown wool Grandma spun up for me last weekend. Madder dye comes from the root of the madder plant and, according to my leaflet from Maiwa, was supposed to yield a Turkey Red. I envisioned this to be more red than the resulting orange colour. I was able to tone it down slightly by adding 2 tsp of cutch right to the dyebath. Cutch is apparently the resinous extract of several different woods. I am pleased with the result, especially the nice shimmer in the orange/rust colour.
The wool is pretty special too. Grandma picked out the brown sheep last summer from a farm on Saltspring Island here in BC. She spun and knit up the wool as a sweater for my sea adventuring cousin. He, and now the sweater, sail on the ship Pacific Grace as part of the S.A.L.T.S. program out of Victoria. The white wool comes from a recent adventure of Grandma's to the Tugwell Creek Honeyfarm and Meadery. Yummmmm. Sorry, mead not included :) This really is wool with a story to tell!

Next! This skein, once spun, is definitely going to be called ocean. I could not have achieved these colours if I have tried. I was aiming for greens, and got more blues, but that is ok! I have already spun some wool in similar colours and I will ply the two together. Beauty. The merino roving is dyed using acid dyes, and a mixture of blue and yellow to produce the range in greens, blues, and lemon yellow.
Ever canoed or kayaked on the westcoast on a hot, still summer day, gliding amonst the seaweed? These are the colours of the ocean as you peer down from your boat to the bottom of the sea.
You can see, from my bobbin, that I gave up on the hemp (temporarily) in favour of the ocean green roving. The hemp is just, well, needy. I have to pay attention to it every second because of the short short fibres. I'll be back, just a temporary diversion.


And finally, I dyed this lovely skein this morning. Purple is my favourite colour, and this one turned out to be quite a calm lavendar purple. On another dyeing day, I had dyed roving with logwood, and spun it up. I then plied it with plain white. This washed out the light purple colour, so I overdyed the whole thing again this morning with a strong dye bath of logwood. Because this is all merino, it is super soft too! Although she doesn't have as much of a "past" as the other skein dyed with madder, she still has character.

That is what I have been doing on my brief time off. In-laws arrive today to see our new place. Feels like summer out, and this girl is happy.

So I can prove I am currently knitting! Here is the baby sweater I am making for my friend's new wee Pippa who arrived on the 8th. I thought a baby sweater would go faster than it is. This is the first sleeve though, and the front and back are finished, so I guess I am getting there.

What a bunch of hullabaloo in my life. We moved- bought a house in Duncan. What a lovely place, and it still hasn't sunk in that I am a home owner. There are boxes everywhere, we don't yet have curtains, and it will remain this way for awhile yet.

I am finishing my dissertation for submission to my committee as we speak. It has to get done in the next few days or else I won't graduate in November!

I started a new job last week, and then quit today. Sigh. Bosses are very unhappy, probably because I can't accurately tell them why I am leaving. Here is the low down (why is it easier to announce it to the public?).

I like to work for myself. The few days I was there were so frustrating to me. Everyone is unhappy, there are management problems, and I hate walking in to that. Never mind they don't have the software or hardware I need to do my spatial analysis. And no work, so I was bored for the 3 days I was there. On day 3 boss # 1 walks in and suggests if I want to go home to put my house in order that would be ok because they don't have work for me for 3 weeks. And get this, I still feel like apologizing, blaming myself for this whole mess. Arghhh, the scientific/academic world can be a pain in the a**.

And yes, I have been waffling for a few weeks, since I caught a wiff of these types of problems upon earlier visits to the office. The University pulled through though and I am so lucky to have a postdoc position now which will get me through somewhat. Now I have to go practice that independence and find work. Somebody?

The wool has suffered what with move, job upheaval, and dissertation deadlines. I am spinning the hemp, but it is slow going because of the short fibres. Maybe this is why I am feeling more insane than usual though???? Correlation here?

These two blogs have landed on my doorstep- they must have known I needed them :) (as my witchy friend would say).
http://sciencewoman.blogspot.com/
http://science-professor.blogspot.com/

Off to walk the doggies before S. gets home from his day in the field.