Yesterday I finally had time to prep eggs and dye for pysanky. I ordered the powdered dye online and it worked beautifully. It’s the same brand I used years ago.

I have been teaching the youngest girls and they’ve been doing a good job. I have to admit, I would prefer to work alone in a quiet room without interruption, but such is parenting, lol.

I still have to blow the eggs which I will probably do this evening. I’ll take better photos of all of the eggs once they’re dried and oiled.

We started last night with some thunderstorms and it’s just been bucketing down ever since. This morning I emptied 1.61” from the rain gauge (7AM, 24 hours), and there’s been at least another 2 inches since then. And it’s still raining!

Father lit an apple cider candle this morning, and combined with the rain and darkness it felt just like late November. I even put on a cardigan. I said I wished we could give summer a miss and head straight into fall. (And there was much rejoicing.)

I finished the wool granny square blanket last night. It weighs a ton.

I also wound onto two industrial spools the lengths of joined knit fabric strips I dyed last year. There were a few large pieces of white knit fabric that I received as part of an auction lot. I had no idea what to do with them but they seemed useful (alas, everything has possibilities). It occurred to me a few months later that I could dye them and cut them into strips for use in a woven rag rug. I wouldn’t consider using white for a rug. The dye took nicely and I cut them into strips but had to wind them into both of my rag shuttles. That’s not very serviceable (I will actually need to use the larger one when it comes to weaving) but I didn’t have anything else handy. When my third daughter was cleaning out her large stash of stuff she came across these spools and gave them to me. They work perfectly.

I’ve finally decided on a rug to place in front of the kitchen sink. I kept procrastinating on setting up the loom because I didn’t have a size in mind, but now that I have made a decision I’ve recovered my enthusiasm.