Housepainting, Waving Lace and Other Things

We're having our house painted, so it's been a little crazy around here. Add to that the fact that my camera batteries ran out of juice and, well, that's why so much time has lapsed between posts. But, I have been knitting, and I'm especially proud of these:

Waving Lace Socks from Favorite Socks. And here's best part. They're knitted from my first hand-dyed yarn. Knit Picks bare merino/silk dyed with Kool-Aid. I love the color, but it was sort of an accident. I wanted blue socks so I bought some Tropical Punch which, contrary to the color of the package, is (of course) punch RED. Ick. I had some Grape already which I thought might make a nice sock color, but I didn't have enough. So I ended up using 4 Grape plus 2 Tropical Punch, and that combo produced a purple-pinky color, not unlike the color of the socks on the cover of FS. I may have stuffed too much yarn into my dyepot, or maybe I didn't stir enough, because there are sections that barely took up any color. But I kind of like the heathery effect, at least as a first effort at hand-dyeing. I already bought more wool to try again, and I've been reading more about hand-dyeing, includine A Dyer's Garden. If I can bear to chop off the heads of my marigolds, I'd probably have enough to dye yarn for a pair of socks.

We've had quite a bit of rain here in eastern PA, and my garden is looking fab, if I do say so myself. Last week's prize was this lovely lupine. I'd planted four in early spring, and didn't expect to see any activity until next year, but then last week, I spotted this purple spike and have been adoring it ever since. I also added a few more things, just for a bit more color, including some cosmos, one of my favorite annuals.

Kate as always loves to be outside, and on hot days, she flops down in this cool spot, which we've taken to calling her "nest."

Over the past few weeks, we've spent quite a bit of time deciding on (and changing our minds about) paint colors. Now that the main color is on, we need to make a decision about accent colors. At the moment, we're wondering whether to go green (left column) or gold (right column).