A bit of stripy action

I'm full of cold (again) this weekend, so don't get too close, whatever you do! I barely seem to get over one bug before the next one strikes. But I didn't let it stop me getting out and about yesterday. You might remember that last year Mr JK took part in a couple of Ultra running events. The first was the Norfolk 100k. I have stayed in touch with the organiser and offered to help out at this year's event; So yesterday I set off to Holme-next-the-Sea where I was part of a team at a checkpoint. I had a brilliant day, and ended up going on to the finish after my second checkpoint stint, where we cheered all the runners in and I made them endless cups of tea. It was a really hot day - hot enough just to be sitting, let alone running 100k. It really was a battle of mind over body for some of them, amazing stuff. I felt proud to be a tiny part of it. You can see my view for 5 hours yesterday afternoon on my One Hour Outside photos. Here's this week's offering...

June 5th - enjoying a mug of tea in the garden with Flo before the rain started

June 6th - a hideously wet and windy day in Norfolk, I didn't venture outside unless necessary!

June 7th - surveying the windswept garden after the rain

June 8th - grooming Flo on the garden bench

June 9th - enjoying all the flowers in the garden (and ignoring the weeds!)

June 10th - the marshes at Stiffkey, where I was part of the checkpoint team for the Norfolk 100k race

June 11th - saying hello to Seamus and Declan, the garden gnomes. Mr JK snuck Declan in (he's the one on the right) and it took me a while to spot him. Little did Mr JK know that I'd already bought him Seamus for a silly birthday present. I look at them together and it makes me smile, remembering the laughs we had about them.

I promised to share my efforts at yarn dyeing from last weekend with you. We were able to dye one skein and one sock blank. I decided to hand paint some flashes of colour on; I was aiming for a kind of sunset theme...

I've cast on a pair of socks using this skein and a ball of black Opal sock yarn. The plan is to knit some stripy socks, with the flashes of colour popping up between the black stripes. I haven't got very far with the first sock. I think I should probably have painted on another repeat of the colours on the skein as I'd have preferred the colours to appear a little more evenly around the sock, but I'm just going to stick with it and see how it turns out.

You can see a little of what I'm aiming for from what's I've knit so far. What do you reckon? Will it look ok? The colour flash is gradually moving around the sock, I'd have preferred it a little more random, but since it was my first dyeing effort, I'm happy. Flo was using the yarn cake as a pillow and was not impressed when I disturbed her to take a photo!

For the sock blank, I also handpainted it. I wanted to do a grey/pink colourway. Some people dipped their blank in a dye bath, gradually adding more dye to produce a really smooth gradient. Mine is definitely not smooth and I didn't get the dye right into the knitting. But I quite like the 'chalky' effect of the yarn...

I've split it into two yarn cakes and the plan is to knit another pair of stripy socks, starting with dark grey and dark pink stripes and moving to pale grey and pale pink stripes. I love how the yarn looks in the cakes...

I've only started the ribbing on these, so with luck I will have something to share with you next week. I've not knit with such crinkly yarn before but I'm sure it will be ok.

Before I go, I must just share with you a lovely surprise gift that I received from Sarah over at Fripperies & Bibbelots. She had seen my 'Lovehearts' handspun yarn and was inspired to create some stitch markers. Lucky me! I love Sarah's knitting notions. She's in the process of setting up her own shop away from Etsy so I'll let you know when she has these in stock.

Don't forget that there's still time to enter my June Pay it Forward giveaway here. Have a great week and see you soon. xxx