It's been a long week...

...of dyeing! I finally made some headway at getting the shop stocked, and had a minor burst of creativity so I came up with a few new colorways (these are all listed in the Etsy shop as I type)...
Fat Tuesday...

Mums...

Bountiful Harvest (this was a tough one to name, with so many different opinions from friends)...

my favorite, Cowgirl,

and Maui Sunset (don't know how this pic got missed the first time around, but it is here now... ),

inspired by a photo sent to me by Donna.
I focused on the bit of color at the horizon, but may need to tweak it a bit for her. I love how this particular version came out, tho. I really like how the dark blue plays against the brighter colors.
And for good measure, I dye a couple skeins of Black Forest Fudge, my old stand-by favorite, since I was doing up some fiber for Knit Pickings as well. I'll also have this in merino/silk roving as soon as it is dry. (drool!)

In knitting news, I am cruising slowly along on Poppy's sleeves, and am feeling better about the striping as they develop. I'll spare you the pics for now, but will show more when they are further along. I did take a break from it to cast on Jacob's R2D2 hat yesterday and literally knit ALL DAY while sitting at the computer doing listings and Photoshop and was therefore able to cast off the main portion this morning. I fudged it a bit. I didn't want to have to go back and duplicate stitch the details on -- I know me, it would never get done. So, I instead knit it as a stranded piece (something I really want to get better at) and just used the existing charts for this. If you try the hat this was, make note that for some reason, the first 15 stitches are omitted from the chart (I used the adult large in a smaller gauge - more stats later). It got a bit sticky in the decreases, again -- it wasn't designed to be knit this way, but I managed it in a fairly presentable fashion. I also got nervous it wasn't going to fit, so I reduced the rate of decrease after a few rows. It shows a bit now while lying flat, but I am confident it will all come out in the blocking. It fits the Boy with plenty of room to spare and he is thrilled. Now, to just knit the little protrubing bits and the "eye" as a patch that I will sew on. (Another personal mod. If I had knit it in, I would have had to carry the yarn all the way around the hat to knit about 12 stitches. Not happening.) So here it is...


and you know what you really want, the inside...

how did I do??