I had a great time crafting for Nerd Wars although I didn’t finish nearly as many things as I wanted to.

Just to show that I love putting myself under stress I joined another Ravelry knitting group:  Harry Potter Knitting Crochet House Cup. My friend Janalee plays there and it sounded like fun. I will join Nerd Wars again in June and hopefully I can get on the TARDIS team which is made up of Doctor Who fans. 

I finished a few small projects in answer to the HPKCHP challenges.

A spider washcloth, pattern here.

A Doctor Who logo washcloth

And then I dyed some yarn.

I started out by rewinding the skein around two chairs placed at each end of my dining room table. I originally was going for longer color repeats and then changed my mind. Or more accurately couldn’t quite make the system of putting a section of yarn in 3-4 canning jars.

I couldn’t find 4 canning jars all the same size. I will be fixing that problem for future projects plus I ran across a blog that shows how to do the multiples in a slight different way.  This time I snaked the yarn in the casserole dis, filled the dish with water,

and sprinkled the Kool Aid straight on top of the wet yarn without mixing it with water first.

I wasn’t sure I was going to like it, but it turned out kinda fun.

I went for a solid color next.  This was dyed with Ice Blue Raspberry Kool Aid.

Sadly, I ran out of bare yarn to dye. I’m going to have to order some more 🙂 Meanwhile I have more projects on the needles and in the planning stages to work on.

I didn’t do anything for Tour de Fleece this year. I should have made a goal and then tried to meet it, but there is so much going on and so much decluttering and organizing that I want to get done. If part of what I want to get done includes getting the yarn and half finished afghan out of a basket in my room that is taking up much needed space, it follows that crocheting counts as decluttering.  Right?  I need more room, or less stuff. How do I get both without getting rid of stuff that I want to keep and not moving to a bigger house?  Well, my stash is taking up a lot of space, so again, crocheting and knitting and spinning to use up the stash that is taking up space counts as organizing and decluttering.  I like this plan. I proud to be a part of it.

This afghan was sitting unfinished in a basket at the foot of the bed. Since I finished it, it now lives in Danica’s room instead of mine. Decluttering at its best 🙂

I have recently created more spinning stash and I’m dyeing (heh) to create more. I’ve made one batch of each of the Neon food colors.

It looks red on my monitor but it really is more of a dark pink, I promise.

Here is another batch of fiber that I dyed. I’m not sure if I got what I was going for or not.

I was trying to recreate some colors I had admired in an old Spin Off magazine. I wasn’t happy just after I gave up finished dyeing it, but it looked a lot better the next morning. I think the dyeing fairies must be related to the tole painting fairies in that they come in the night and fix things while you sleep.

So, I’m plotting new things to dye and now that my bare yarn is here (and I still have fiber left) I can spend another day in the kitchen having fun. While at WalMart, I found condiment squeeze jars that will be PERFECT for hand dyeing some fiber and yarn.

I just have to decide on what colors I want to use.  Wait, I want to use all of them, so I need to decide on what colors I want to use NEXT.  Hmmm… still all of them.  I may have to resort to putting colors in a hat and have a kid draw one out. Well, not the bottles of color, that could make a huge mess and we all know how well I avoid messes.  *cough*