Around the Richmond Knitters group any occasion is a crafting occasion.  Pretty much any excuse will do.  Someone’s getting married?  Group blanket.  Baby?  Definitely a blanket. It’s Monday?  Go on then, I’ll do a bit of knitting if you twist my arm…

This month, Sonia’s birthday proved to be an excellent excuse for a bit of surreptitious craftiness.  A throw away comment that she’d got a bit bored of spinning single colour tops and a knowledge of her love of pink and green led Melanie to hatch a Cunning Plan that involved spinning fibre and acid dyes.  As most of the pretty-much-communal Richmond dyeing kit was in my possession because I’d got a bit over excited about making blank skeins pretty colours recently, Melanie and Sharon came over to my place over the long weekend and we got dyeing.

Over the course of the afternoon, along with some other bits and pieces, we turned this batch of BFL and silk tops (pictured here somewhat damp after being soaked in water and white vinegar to start with):

Into a colourful plastic wrapped roll of pink and green:

At this point we had absolutely no idea how it was going to look when it dried out, but going on faith, we steamed it to set the colour, rinsed it out and let it dry and Melanie had plaited it up nicely for photos and presentation, and low and behold, it turned out we’d managed to produce this:

I’m a little stunned we managed to make something this pretty!  I was not convinced when we rinsed it because being wet makes it all rather flat and sad, but as it dried up and regained it’s lustre and bounce, it began to look absolutely gorgeous.

Sadly, I wasn’t at RichmondKnitters on Monday to give it to Sonia too as I was rather ickily ill on Monday night and decided not to go and spread it to the rest of the group.  But I’m reliably informed that she loved it which was the aim.  Cunning Plan accomplished.

I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to seeing how it spins up now.

Happy Birthday Sonia!