Punk Rock Preschooler

Apparently, we're back to the stage of needing to make sure we're noticed. We've started decorating things we shouldn't with permanent markers again. **SIGH** Thank goodness he's cute...

This is his Marilyn Manson imitation.
As long as he doesn't start putting on fake boobs and red contact lenses (clicking here is not for the faint of heart), I'm okay with this.

This is what I see when I look up from my bed. It's the ceiling over the loft area we sleep in, which stretches over above the kitchen as well. I find it pretty. It's especially cool lit up only by moonlight or the blue light that my computer speakers emit when they're on.

It also makes a pretty cool background for portrait taking, I think...

And, one last little thing that isn't at all related to children or my house...

I died (yep, killed it dead - woops, I meant dyed) some wool the other day. I wanted to try out dyeing fabric with natural dyes. This was done with hibiscus flowers, which, according to the book I used, should have given the yarn a light mauve or pink color. Hmmm. Okay. Perhaps we should try again some other time. I'm sure that part of the problem is the fact that I needed 100g of petals for every 100g of yarn. I only had 75g of flowers, but decided to try it out and see what happened. This is also just some very cheap Knit Picks dye-your-own laceweight merino, which doesn't absorb colors as well as better quality yarns (as far as I've heard).

It started out looking like the yarn I'm using for this long lost baby shawl - just natural. Then, I threw it in the dye pot, which looked like this...

which led me to believe it would turn out a lot more pink than this...

I even let the mix sit for several days, hoping it would absorb a lot more color. I don't know why it didn't. Obviously, I'm no expert on the matter, but there was a lot of color left in the liquid when I strained it a couple of days later. I'm not sure how much is supposed to be left. I imagine the liquid wouldn't be clear in the end, but I was hoping for a bit of pink on the yarn. It's current color reminds me of Knit Picks' fawn colorway, even if it's possibly a bit lighter. It definitely took some color - just not the one I was expecting. Either way, I do kind of like the color it has. It's very antique looking, and it would make a lovely shawl, I would think. That or a lacey sweater, maybe. I'll have to think about that for a while.

Before I start in on that, I guess that baby shawl does deserve a little attention. But, before I do that, I'd like to sneak downstairs and attempt to finally finish the apron I've been working on in bits and pieces for the last week. It's taken entirely too long, because of other obligations and little set-backs like children needing my attention or lengthy hours of kitchen duty after making pizzas (from scratch) with the kids - more on that tomorrow, perhaps (because, like a good daughter to a grandmother far from her grandkids, I took pictures).