I had a moderately frustrating day today – I tried simmering the silk with the black walnut hulls, but even after adding some alum to the dyebath, the best I could get was a cafe-au-lait brown, where I’d been looking for a dark brown. I’d forgotten that silk takes dyes differently – wool would have been dark brown, dammit, but what I had was a medium tan. I finally gave up and dyed it with acid dyes, resulting in a lovely rust brown. Unfortunately, I still haven’t figured out the art of 100% even dyeing yet, so there are paler spots where the yarn bunched up against the ties in the skein, but it’s done, and tomorrow morning it should be dry enough to start winding into balls and onto bobbins. In short, I can start the second scarf tomorrow.
Oh yes. I finished weaving the first scarf, tied the fringes, and threw it into the laundry. I decided to run it through the washing machine on the delicate cycle, and then dry it flat afterwards – interested in seeing how it comes out. I do think the sett (16 epi) was just about right, though: not too tight, not too loose.
I’m not as fond of this scarf as I was of the first one, perhaps because I am not a subtle person and am not generally fond of pale beige/ecru. (So why, then, did I do a pale beige scarf? Well, ya got me there. All I can say is, it seemed like a good idea at the time.)
Also made one large batch of maple fudge, which came out pretty well I think, despite a brief panic when I couldn’t get the mixer beater detached at the critical moment of pouring the fudge into a pan. (In my experience there’s about two seconds’ difference between pouring fudge into a pan to harden and scraping a stiff mess out of the beater bowl and packing it down while it’s still warm. Fortunately both seem to work OK, although the first is better.) I then ran out of sugar – typical, I went to buy milk and butter and forgot sugar! Bad Tien. Bad Tien.
Tomorrow’s goals, since I can’t ride due to this incipient saddle-sore that’s slowly healing, are to make some lavender-Meyer lemon – white chocolate fudge (which tastes fantastic, but is difficult to make), some coconut-lime-white chocolate fudge, and some classic chocolate fudge. I used all of Mike’s walnuts in the maple walnut fudge, so I’ll have to either make straight-up chocolate fudge or else buy more walnuts. Hmm. I might use pecans.
I also plan, of course, to cut up the caramels and dip them in chocolate, which will take a good couple hours.
If I have time left over from any of that (especially in the morning), I’ll work on the second scarf. This should go quicker, since the loom’s already threaded and the inevitable threading errors worked out. All I have to do is tie up the front end, and I’m ready to go.
