On pins and needles

Voila! The Jewel Cardigan is blocking on the futon, ribbing stretched tight as a drum. 15 inches across, which means almost 30 inches in circumference, which should be more than necessary. I've consulted with my fellow knitters at the Fitted Knits Along, looking for advice on this tight ribbing problem, but not yet gotten any responses. Fingers crossed.

Rachel's comment has guilted me into this, but surely I would have gotten around to it soon enough. Probably. I imagine it will be dry enough to unpin on Friday, so I will get on with the buttonbands over the weekend. Tomorrow should be a good night for knitting as Anne-Marie is coming over for a dyeing extravaganza. I'm going to help her get her hands dirty dye some yarn and I'm plan to dye up some bulky thick/thin yarn to send my Secret Pal in her next package. I'm using the same base yarn that I used to dye the yarn I used for this scarf, which was sent to Marisol during the Funky Scarf Swap last fall. Aside - that was a fun swap, I wonder if there will be another? I'm hoping for more subdued colors this time around, as my pal is a jewel tone person. I'm thinking blues and purples, but blue is her favorite so I might just go with shades of blue. My most successful dyeing experiments thus far have been using multiple shades of the same or similar colors, since by using all one color you avoid the potential of the bad-colors-bleeding-into-each-other-brown-black-mess that can arise when you use multiple strong colors. But, for me it's always a bit of a crapshoot what actually comes out the dye pot! For instance, that scarf I made Marisol was bright! That's what I was going for, but it's almost neon in places. I have a lot of that yarn left too, but I'm a bit afraid of it and unsure what to do with it...I'll be sure to document the dyeing for your viewing pleasure!