Wild Things

Wild thing!: It's Thanksgiving eve in the U.S. and the wild things have started the feast early. Sometime in the night they devoured the pumpkins on my front step. They did a thorough job as usual – all that was left was the stem and a few chips of orange shell. Well, there goes my holiday decoration – at least there are some happy critters (of multiple sizes and species, judging from the chips) out there.

You make my heart sing: Last year I had a club subscription and got this skein of Scout's Swag 100% Superwash Merino, colorway Ballooney. Its inspiration was a balloon fiesta, and it does make me think of roasted poblano chilies, limes, and Coronas.



Taming this wild thing is going to be a challenge. When knit up into socks, the intense red forms two-row stripes that contrast so strongly with the gold and lime that they both read lime. The effect is not to my liking. I want something that breaks up the stripes and makes the gold more distinct. Hm....

You make everything: The barrage of hint-dropping at casa Jersey Knitter reached a crescendo the other day with an earnest compare and contrast of the hazards and delights of cholesterol versus hydrogenated oils. Eyeroll. Messages received and decoded – this year the holiday pies will have "tasty" crust.



Groovy: The short skeins from the knotty Andean Alpaca came in handy as subjects for more adventures in overdyeing with Kool-Aid. From left-to-right, that's Cherry, Mango with a dash of Cherry, Lemonade, Original, Berry Blue, and Grape (click on photo to embiggen).



In terms of product, the colors turned out pretty much as expected – the mint green cooled down the Kool-Aid colors. In terms of process, Lemonade was the most pleasant to work with (I used eucalyptus-scent Eucalan as the surfactant and rather liked the smell of Lemonade eucalyptus); Grape the worst (the color broke up and the fragrance was cloying). Mango, formulated in Mexico, includes something that makes the drink turbid – when the dye exhausts, the dye bath turns milky white rather than clear, an interesting effect. Cherry, which contains more dye than other flavors (it's the third ingredient!), strikes fast but also runs, as reds tend to do.

Instrumental interlude: I haven't decided what I'll make with the overdyed yarn, but as I'm ABT (all but turkey) at the moment, I need to stop pondering that pleasant matter and scoot to the market. Last night I saw a fresh 10-pound (4.5 kg) wild bird at Kings, with the telltale slim body, high breastbone, mottled skin, and dark pin feathers... for USD $84. I've always wanted to try cooking and eating a wild turkey, but balked. It's curious that when the wildest thing around is the economy and frozen battery-raised birds are loss leaders, a sustainably harvested, fairly priced wild turkey seems like a reprehensible luxury rather than Franklin's noble bird. More proof the world is messed up – and yet I'm both hopeful and thankful this holiday weekend.

Have a safe and bountiful Thanksgiving!