What I did on my vacation:

1. Learned how to crochet, but not very well. The crochet instructor used to teach kindergarden, so she was not afraid to yell and grab it out of your hands to show you how wrong you were. A little unnerving.

2. Dyed some yarn with Tracy:

This one came in a light, kind of beigey green, and I was over it. I dyed in in kool aid lemonade, which slightly changed it, then striped it with real dye at Tracy's. Much better.



This is the unraveled sweater yarn. I first dyed it with lemonade kool aid and blue and green food dye, trying for a green color, and it turned out limey mint. Kind of sick. The yarn was really resistant to dye for some reason. I took it to Tracy's for some dyeing help, and it finally got some good saturation of color. The color goes from yellowy green to bluey teal, and it looks amazing. I think I'm craving green because the entire world is dead and white and slushy grey snow. Here is our backyard this afternoon. Not like it's ever a verdant wonderland, but you get the idea:




3. Started knitting a sweater while watching all kinds of tv on our new high def set. No hitting required. There is a channel out here which shows Bob Ross all day. YES.



4. Ate amazing food. For those in SD, it's similar to Urban Solace, without the cringe-inducing name.

5. Finally busted out the pasta machine, and made some fresh pasta tonight. It worked much better than I expected for my first attempt.



I still conspired to ruin it by making the WORSE pasta sauce ever. In further denial of the weather outside, I made a lemon and parsley sauce. So light! So fresh! So acidic, it tasted like vomit! Seriously. It is a testament to the strength of our relationship that Don could honestly tell me that, and I could take it. Because it did. Taste like vomit.

In further kitchen experiments, I tried to make homemade veggie meat slices. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm sure some of you will follow that link and be pretty sure that vomit is a good guess. I'm more optimistic, but I used to be vegan. I'm used to eating weird things like that. We will see.

And of course I have to work tomorrow. Well, it was good while it lasted.

Here are some other knitted things I've made lately:

Cowl with Christmas yarn from Michelle because she is awesome:


Cowl with Malabrigo:


This yarn is amazingly soft. And Im sure I picked the color as another reaction against snowy winter blahs.

Here I am, engaged in some serious business: