It was redone.

That started bit of a hat in the top left of yesterday's photo?  It became clear that the yarn would make only 2/3 of a hat that size, and I didn't have anything close enough to finish it nicely.

But I could start over, integrating a yarn that is different but coordinates enough to look intentional:

Bernat "Forever Fleece" in "Croton Green" and
Big Twist POSH in "Blue Raspberry".

Ten Questions

There is a website that sends out a link to a question each day (except I don't get them - not even in my junk/SPAM folder, so have to remember to look) during the High Holy Days.  Ten questions, for you to think about how the past year affected you, and what is to come next year.  Reflections.

If you want to try it:  https://www.doyou10q.com/question/2025/1

You can opt to share your answers or keep them private.

I had a busy week and next one will be also.  The first three days I am in a CISSP exam writing workshop for ISC2, and then it is Yom Kippur.  Luckily my junior attorney returns on Monday and hopefully it will not take her too long to catch up so I can start giving projects to her.  At some point, my mother and I are going to the early voting; my father votes absentee and we'll deliver his ballot.

I'm back to making hats for the various collections:

It looks like I will get a fourth, if small (child, not teen/adult, sized), hat out of the ball of Bernat Forever Fleece.  Each one is a different pattern, including the Flight Formation Beanie that still has sticks in the top.  The ones unfinished will be worked on during tonight's fiber group meeting.  Four of these were knitted in the last week, the three with sticks in the top (and there is probably enough of the pink/grey boucle for another hat) and the striped one at the bottom.

I want to make other things, especially from yarn I purchased last weekend, but I am dutifully working on hats.

Welcoming 5786

Double conferences last week, a fun one long-planned and a professional one quickly added when they needed somebody on a panel, Los Angeles first and DFW next and I got home in time for the start of Rosh Hashonnah.

May everybody be written for a sweet year, with enough food and shelter and good health.

They disappeared.

I was getting ready to create this post, and was moving photos of the final test dye for my DFW Fiber Fest class, when >poof!< they all disappeared.  I've tried everything for recovery, with no luck.  Same thing happened when I took a class a couple years ago, and I was even sadder because those I cannot reproduce.

So this is the remains of the test dye, and descriptions of what went before:  I wanted to show the difference between dyeing half a skein, and half a knitted blank.  I took two blanks that are failures from a use-in-class viewpoint (because of dropped stitches, due to a tensioning issue, and two skeins in the original hank.  I had one pellet left from a set of easter egg dyes, and didn't remember the colour, but it should go with light blue.

When dissolved in vinegar the dye was deep blue, so I thought it would be blue, but no, it was purple:

As you can see, it dyed them to a light purple that is not as visible when the yarns are wound.  That's what I wanted to show, the difference between dyed-in-skein and dyed-in-knitted-blank for the end results:

Wound balls underneath the same put-ups.  Notice how much
larger the hanked yarn ball is - I had to finish it by hand.

Luckily I have one of each format that I had dyed with neon green, so it's more vivid, to show how they look wound, although I don't have a matching set of hank and knitted.  That's why I made the others, to show the before-and-after in class:

In each of the above, the hank is on the left and the knitted blank is on the right.  You can also see the effect of the yarn being knitted and wound, or in the hank and wound.

I also have the three-colour ball from an earlier test dye batch.  Some of the yarns from that batch became pennants for the bunting at DFW Fiber Fest, and I realized after I mailed them that I forgot to take a photo.  I hope to get a snapshot of them onsite.

Twenty-Four Years Later

People are saying "we should be the people we were on 9/12".  It's only been 24 years, but it seems that despite all the memorials and discussion, people have forgotten.

At least they are not (yet?) claiming it's all a hoax, as too many do with the Shoah.

Grandparents Day

The Sunday after Labour Day (in the USA, so the first or second Sunday of September) is Grandparents Day.  The only one I've posted about at any length is my maternal grandmother, who is the only one alive as I've written this blog.  My paternal grandparents disappeared when bio-dad left the family, and my step-paternal grandparents died decades before I met my stepfather (who most of the world knows as my father, he's been a part of my life for so many decades), and I also had a step-maternal grandfather.  But photos of these aren't on my digital media, and so harder to add to the blog.

I do have a photo of my maternal grandfather, although he died decades ago also, and I forget why I captured it electronically.

Arnold "Zep" Zimmerman

I've probably be thinking about him because football season just started, and it's still baseball season, and he was deeply devoted to both sports.  He played in college, but never professionally, instead building a truck parts and automotive business with his father and brothers.  We all learned the games at his knee, and I remember attending them with him, or watching many on television.

Every Sunday for decades he hosted a family breakfast at a local restaurant.  I remember sitting at the far end of the table, because I was one of the youngest.  You could hear my grandfather everywhere as he told stories and laughed.

I remember the bowls of sultanas and pecans set around their house for snacking.  All of the family gatherings he presided over (his parents having died long before I was born) with dozens of the very extended family, and friends, crowding tables or scattering through whichever home hosted that event.  The tradition of him singing "Down By The Old Mill Stream" with his brothers - cheerfully in four different keys, and with silly gestures that had us all laughing.  Some of his jokes, at least one of which wouldn't be considered politically correct, but it makes me laugh to remember.

There were not-so-good times too, as there always are with families, but I am glad to have so much happiness to remember.