But if you hurry, you might be able to grab some of Cookie’s beautiful handspun before it’s gone. It’s a great opportunity for those of you who don’t spin – I can personally vouch for how awesome it is.

And of course, there are still plenty of lovely Cupcake Fiber Company batts for the spinners. I can’t decide what color I love the best. I think today I’m leaning towards “Rouge”.

A box stuffed full of yarn remnants! The girls were so excited about it, that they did what I’ve always wanted to do when faced with piles of cashmere, silk, and wool. They rolled around naked in it.

It’s particularly special because Cookie tells me that there’s tidbits of yarn from several of you included. The Barbies think Auntie Cookie is the cat’s meow, and I agree whole-heartedly.

She even included something special for me – some of her beautiful handspun:

It’s awesome! I think she’s been secretly spinning for decades. I’m especially excited because I’ve never knit with handspun before. It’s gorgeous, and totally me – a beautiful heathered yarn, in a mouth-watering plum. I’m a real sucker for heathers and tweeds. She tells me it’s 361 yards of merino/nylon. I’ll have to find something special to make with it.

Maybe I’ll find something to go with hat I’m making, since it coordinates very nicely with that yarn.

Thank you Cookie – you’re the best.

But when I got the yarn, it was much more neon than I had expected. Fluorescent, in fact. Somewhere between hunter orange and traffic cone orange. I hid it in the closet for a while, and every so often I’d look at it to see if it was really as bright as I remembered.

Yep. Still bright.

When I was talking about it at SnB, Susan decided that it should be overdyed with blue to tone down the brightness. And she just happened to have some blue dye stock left over from a class. She was going to just leave it on my porch in the middle of the night in the morning on her way to work, but having NO experience in dyeing yarn, I really didn’t want to tackle it on my own. Susan finally gave in to my pathetic pleading and came over on a beautiful sunny day to help me with it, armed with gallons of various dye stock.

She had an electric turkey roaster that she uses for dyeing, and my LYS was kind enough to let me borrow one of theirs, since I had too much yarn (about 2 pounds) to do in one.

We did some samples, trying a blue overdye and a red overdye. At first we had too much blue dye, and it made the yarn pretty scary looking. Those test pieces went right into the trash. But a lighter solution of blue dye did tone down the brightness, and made the color more of a burnt orange. The red made a really lovely, firey red-orange, which reminded me of the yarn I used for Scoop du Jour.

It’s probably hard to tell in the photo below, but the top left snippet is the original yarn, the one on the bottom left has the red overdye, and the one on the right has the blue overdye. It was hard to choose whether to go with the red or blue dye, as I liked both of them. But since the redder one was so similar to Scoop du Jour, and although pretty, it was still a very bright color, I decided to go with the blue dye since it was more like the orange I was hoping it would be when I bought it.

So into the pot it went.

We had mixed feelings about the result. The yarn was pretty blotchy from some parts having absorbed a lot more dye than other parts, but we mostly liked how the color worked. But when dried out a bit, it looked like some parts of the yarn really didn’t take up any of the dye at all, and were still pretty bright. We agreed that if we redyed it with more blue, we would be risking having the darker parts turn out like our failed test pieces. Susan suggested dyeing the yarn again with some red and a bit of black. She mixed up a light concentration and added half of it to the pot, figuring we’d use the other half for the remaining yarn in the other pot. We held our breath and dunked in the yarn. It didn’t make too much of a change, but it did look better. Since the change was subtle, we decided to redye the same yarn again with the remaining dye. Eureka! We both really liked the result. The lighter sections became much closer to the darker sections, and the color was improved. Susan mixed up another batch of dye in the same proportion, and we dyed the remaining yarn in the same way, dyeing it twice with half of the dye each time.

And the result? We went from this:

to this:

Susan thinks it looks like Malabrigo’s Cinnabar. I agree. So it shall be dubbed “Susan’s Cinnabar”.

I definitely owe Susan big-time.

All of  a sudden, I’m being attacked by green yarn. I just bought green yarn for two different projects, neither of which I’m planning to start right now as they’re definitely winter projects.

But when looking through my stash for something that would be suitable for the Golden Vintage Cardigan, what stands out as a good possibility? Why of course, some olive green Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece.

And there they sit, looking so innocent. I think it’s a conspiracy.

But having been seduced by Margene‘s and Norma‘s Golden Vintage cardigans, I’ve started my own.

Ahem.

Lookie what came in the mail – those nice folks at NordicMart sure do know how to pack boxes. This bag-o-yarn was packed so that it EXACTLY fit into a standard rate box. OK, so the box was bulging slightly. But still, it was pretty amazing. Obviously I knew just exactly how much to order.

All of that fluffy gray Eskimo is slated for the infamous Drops 103-1 jacket, while the rest of the yarn is planned for an attempt at this wild Vogue pattern. Yes, I may be losing my mind.

This is why I don’t make New Year’s resolutions.

Whether you prefer the fibery kind of Whiskey, or the drinkable kind, I’ve got something for you.

First there’s the Reynolds Whiskey, in a heathery purplish color. I grabbed a couple of these at Black Sheep Wool Co’s sale, and am planning to make some gloves.

And the other whiskey? Well, that one’s all Miss T’s fault. Really it is.

While you all know I love a cocktail, I don’t normally like using pre-made mixers. Why drink chemicals, when you can have the real stuff? I’ve cultivated from-scratch recipes for most of the drinks I like, but one thing I hadn’t tackled yet was a Whiskey Sour. Mainly because I still had some sour mix that was leftover from a party, and I’ve been using it up. But then Miss T had to go and write this post about the delicious recipe she tried. All I needed was a few lemons, which I picked up after my afternoon yarn adventure. It was hard to wait until the evening when my sister arrived for her visit, but I managed.

Awesome. Simply awesome. Truly the finest Whiskey Sour I’ve ever had. Not too strong, though you could certainly add a bit more whiskey if you like. But I thought the balance of flavors was just right as it was.

You will notice that a) the glass is either half-full or half-empty, depending on your viewpoint (since I already drank half of it, I will call it half-empty) and b) there is no maraschino cherry. Since the Pontiff once worked on a cherry farm and saw how they were made, he refuses to allow them in the house. Now don’t panic, eating them isn’t going to kill you, but truly, do you really want to eat something that’s been bleached and pumped full of preservatives by people wearing full body suits to protect them from the chemicals, soaked in high fructose corn syrup, dyed with artificial coloring, and flavored with artificial flavoring?

Just check out the ingredients:

Cherries, Water, Corn Syrup, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Citric Acid, Natural & Artificial Flavor, Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Benzoate, FD&C Red #40, and sulfur dioxide.

Tasty, eh? An article in the New York Times referred to them as “the culinary equivalent of an embalmed corpse.”

I guess my next quest will have to be either to try a home-made maraschino cherry recipe, such as the one in the New York Times article, or at least seek out some of the natural brands that are undyed and without preservatives.

ShiBuiKnits Silk Cloud. Chinese Red. My heart pounds.

A Priority Mail box completely stuffed with yarn.

I don’t know how I managed it, but I happened to buy just enough yarn to exactly fill the box. So what all was in it? An assortment of Garnstudio (Drops) yarn. I was very pleased with the Muskat I used for my last cardigan, and there are so many Drops patterns I like, that I thought it would be a good idea to buy a bunch of different yarns to play with. I’m planning to swatch them up with different needle sizes, wash them, fondle them, and use them as reference for future projects. I didn’t exactly buy one of every single yarn variety they make, but I came pretty close. I already had some of two other types, and the rest were ones I probably wouldn’t use.

I can’t say enough about NordicMart – I placed my order Sunday evening, the package was shipped Monday, and I got it today. The prices are great, and the shipping is very reasonable – just a flat rate of $5.95 in the continental U.S.

I’ve heard that they’re even willing to help you out if you have problems or questions with the Drops patterns.

So what was in the box? All this and more (I bought multiple skeins of a couple of varieties – the duplicates aren’t in the photo):

Here’s the yarn in no particular order. By the way, Ravelry lists quite a few of the Garnstudio/Drops yarns as being heavier than they are for some reason.

1: Cotton Viscose in a very rich dark copper color. It’s very shiny and has a lot of drape. I totally adore the color, though I’m not sure how I’d feel about an entire garment made of it, unless it was sort of a special-occasion kind of thing. Ravelry says DK, but Garnstudio says fingering.

2. Lin – 100% linen, in a pretty silver-gray color. Ravelry lists this as worsted, but Garnstudio says DK.

3. Alaska – 100% wool, in charcoal gray. Ravelry calls it aran, Garnstudio calls it worsted.

4. Alpaca – 100% alpaca, in a honey-brown. Ravelry calls it sport, Garnstudio calls it fingering.

5. Bomull-Lin – cotton/linen in a taupe-brown. Worsted.

6. Eskimo – 100% wool in dark brown. Ravelry calls it super-bulky, Garnstudio calls it bulky.

7. Ice – 55% cotton, 45% acrylic in a sea green. Bulky.

8. Karisma – 100% superwash wool in a medium gray. DK.

9. Merino Extra Fine – 100% superwash merino wool in a dark red. DK.

10. Safran – 100% cotton in a pale green. Ravelry says sport, Garnstudio says fingering.

11. Silke Alpaca – 20% silk and 80% baby alpaca in a rusty orange color. Ravelry says aran, Garnstudio says worsted.

12. And of course, we’ll always have “Paris”. 100% cotton. Bright red. Ravelry says aran, Garnstudio says worsted.

And since I’m sure you’re all interested in knowing what the drink of the day is – it’s iced tea (Kirkland Signature Japanese Green Tea), garnished with spearmint. Yes, really.*

* I will neither confirm nor deny rumors that I was seen purchasing some cachaça today for making caipirinhas.

The Woolen Rabbit sock yarn in Moroccan Spice (purchased with the Belvedere Sock Pattern as a kit).

And:

The Woolen Rabbit lace yarn in Moroccan Spice.

I’ve admired Kim’s beautiful yarns, and when I recently saw this colorway in person, I knew it must be mine. Mine. Mine. Unfortunately, in these photos the colors are a bit washed out (even with no flash) – the colors are much darker and richer IRL.

And now it is.