Hazy Days

The Burns Bog is burning! This is a very special ecological area and it has only been saved from commercial development by a concerted effort on the part of people who really care. For the last couple of days there's been a growing fire in the bog (200 hectares at last report) and it's been very difficult for the firefighters to get it under control. In a peat bog the fire can go underground so the water and fire-suppressant chemicals don't have much effect. It's usually so squelchy wet that you can hardly walk on the trails without sinking out of sight, but it's been very dry in the bog after the long summer. No reports yet on how it started. But I can smell the smoke here many miles away. Yesterday it was so bad I had to close all the windows in the house even though it was 21º C. outside.

On Saturday I had my friends over for our monthly Spectrum dye study day. We were playing with dye-painting on wool which I love to do. Some people did wool rovings and some did some yarns as well and one person did 2 silk scarves. This is the wool/nylon sock yarn that I dyed in the ball. You can see how the inside of the balls (on the outside now after I rewound them!) comes out lighter in colour because the dye doesn't penetrate all the way to the centre as well. I'm thinking I'll knit the Falling Leaves socks in the new Knitty. I'm not really fond of the toe-up on one long circular (Magic Loop) method of sock knitting though. I also don't like the short-row heel much. Yeah, I'm a sock-knittin' rebel! I wonder if I can use the lace pattern, turn it upside down and knit my usual socks? Sounds like a pain to re-engineer the pattern though. I'll have to think about it.

Then there's the two different Confetti sock yarns that I got, one for my daughter-in-law (left with purple) and one for my daughter (right with blue) for their birthday presents.

I'm kind of interested to see how these knit up. They are both quite different from each other. Interestingly both girls have the same size feet even though the rest looks quite different! They're an inch longer and wider than mine. Good thing I measured rather than trying to make my usual socks in hopes that they'd fit. These are my holiday projects. I can't wait to get away from the painting and cleaning and organizing for awhile. 4 more sleeps till we go!