I know it's been a long time. Things have been a bit difficult here. However...

 I finished this quilt late last week. It is a crazy quilt made from neckties. Many years ago I had this running joke with a friend. He wore such wild ties I always made jokes about taking them and putting them into a quilt. He died unexpectedly and I took his ties and started the quilt, but never got around to finishing it. I did hand embroidery and was joining the blocks and quilting by hand, but then put it away. When I got it out a couple of years ago I decided I was never going to get it done that way and decided to finish it by machine. Finally got it done and it is going to live on the cedar chest at the foot of my bed.

That is, when the cedar chest gets brought down from the attic. I was going to have it done several weeks ago. I needed Anthony and Phillip to do it because David isn't up to it anymore. Anthony was gone for work that week so I had to wait until the weekend. At four in the morning on the Friday, Ambrosina came into our room and said that Anthony had some sort of a seizure and was in the hospital in Watertown a hundred miles away, he had sepsis and his kidneys and liver were failing. Things were pretty much messed up after that! Because the hospital there is so small all his tests had to be sent away and it took them three days to diagnose, they put him on antibiotics and he started slowly improving. They finally found that he had Legionaires Disease. They had never had treated it in that hospital (he became moderately famous). He is better and back to work, but still not very strong, so I am still waiting on the cedar chest.

While that was going on, David had a routine colonoscopy and they found some spots that needed a CT scan. On the CT scan they found two lesions on his liver. While Anthony was in the hospital David had to have an MRI, back home in Sioux Falls so I was naturally on my own up in Watertown with Anthony (nothing new). The MRI showed the lesions pre-cancer, so next week he has an appointment with the oncologist. It's been a seriously difficult couple of weeks, and there are other things going on that are not being talked about.

However, there are some very bright other things going on. It is wonderful to have reliable transportation!

This is the back of the tie quilt.

So, I've been spending a lot of time in my dye kitchen. These are some of the colors I got from food colors, on raw wool. I used Wilton's gel. Now food coloring isn't the best to use, acid dyes are much better, but there is no source locally and I have to order online, and I never have the money for that. I did discover that on raw wool Violet, Royal Blue and Sky Blue get about the same results. It's not solid colors, they tend to 'break', that is, separate. Combing blends them some, and the results will be pretty. Delphinium Blue and Teal look pretty similar. Copper and red are are also similar, but a little different. I am not impressed with the lemon yellow, but the color might improve with combing. Pink is hot pink. Orange and Creamy Peach are about the same colors.

On yarn these colors would probably be different, but I feel the difference would be very subtle. Now when I can afford the acid dyes it will be interesting to see what I get on the raw wool, but I don't know when that will be.

I decided not to start a new project but am working on UFO's, big sigh.

I am on my last and 24th Broiche Scarf in my knitting. I can't wait to do something else!