On Sunday afternoon we watched the Social Dilemma on Netflix. Immediately after I switched off notifications for most apps on my phone and iPad, I set 30 min limits on Instagram and Facebook and was determined to stop checking my phone and tablet so much….By Thursday night I had:
- finished knitting a sock
- cut out pre-felt, laid out the fibres and felted 4 x 20cm shades and 4 x 25cm shades
- constructed 3 lampshades and dropped them at the shop
- needle felted a landscape picture ornament
- needle felted 5 wool baubles for decorating
- made 14 fairy heads
- did all the dyeing detailed below
- Plus I’d done all the laundry and some committee admin jobs.
Boy, it’s amazing how much I can get done when I’m not on my phone or iPad. If you aren’t impressed yet, just see how much dyeing I did in one day.
On Wednesday I thought I’d see if I could combine dyeing fibres and yarn at the same time as felting some lampshades…the kitchen looked like a bomb site all day but I did get an amazing amount done in one day!
I started off dyeing myself a Christmas self-striping sock yarn. Earlier in the week I had made a huge looped sock yarn around some chairs and a peg, tied it in numerous places around the loop.
I then filled 2 pans with 1.5 litres of water and in one I put red dye and in the other green. After heating for about 30 mins I left it to cool, then washed, rinsed and hung to dry. I did do a slight fade section on both colours with the small amount of undyed I had left in the middle. The idea being it will be red, white, green, white stripes, with the coloured stripes thicker. Well that’s was the theory, in reality I’ll be surprised if I get a full row in white, but we shall see!
Next up was dyeing fibre in landscape colours for using in future lampshades etc. Plus dyeing my BritSpin fibre. Here’s what I dyed:
- North Ronaldsay fibre, these are the famous seaweed eating sheep so it seemed perfect for dyeing 50g in Shell (for beaches) and 50g Lichen (for moss, seaweed etc)
- Corriedale lots of different batches of sky, sea and grass colours, using the colours Tasman, Opal, Ice, Fern, Wattle and Marine
- Border Leicester fibre from Doulton Border Leicester Yarn in Wild Raspberry with some mixed with Wombat. I braided the fibre first to leave some white sections.
Most of my dyes are Kraftkolor Landscape Dyes.
Overall I would say it was a successful day. Having the felting to do meant I wasn’t standing around impatiently waiting for the water to heat or the dyeing process to take its time or the pots to cool. I had 2 pots on the go at the same time and was felting lampshades or constructing some.
On Wednesday, when I did eventually check my phone, I saw that a lady had bought one of the lampshades I had dropped off earlier!
So what’s the plan for today? Constructing the remaining shades and some fairy making. This has been a productive week for sure.
HighlandHeffalump 
Wonderful colours — and very productive week, too. I’m not on social media at all, but haunt the news channels, which takes a huge amount of my time. Luckily I now have some (paid!) work with a deadline plus a few fun things that I can distract myself with. Email is a real time thief — apart from notice of your blog, of course!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Love your dye work! The summer we turned off the tv was an epiphany for us, so much more accomplished! Now I check my iPad for messages from students, but otherwise try to limit my surfing to an early morning session. Social media is a real black hole time waster and we don’t realize how quickly it encroaches!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh what pretty wool! I love how everything looks.
My husband and I watched The Social Dilemma and closed our facebook accounts before the movie was over. We haven’t looked back. I like looking at Instagram for knitting and golden retrievers! It is incredible what a time suck they are though.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Two years ago I turned off all of my facebook notifications. I almost closed my account, but wanted to stay active on some private fb pages that I belong to. I limit checking email to twice per day. It’s amazing how much more focused work I can accomplish as a result.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow, you really did accomplish quite a bit these past few days. I have had all but 1 notifications turned off on my phone for over a year. The only notification I receive is a text message since that is the way 99% of the people I know communicate. (Sigh) what happened to the phone being used as a PHONE! Yet, I still seem to be on my phone quite a bit. Love IG and Pinterest. FB is not such a draw for me anymore with all the political nonsense being spewed on it. I use it for the recipe groups I am in. Ok, I guess I am on social media quite a bit. That rabbit hole is deep and dark lol.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That yarn is beautiful! I’m sure it feels good to be so productive. We watched that a couple of weeks ago and some of it was chilling. I’d already turned off notifications long ago but it’s made me more aware of ads & suggested content, and never clicking on it. I’d leave FB if it weren’t the best way to see cute photos of my nieces & nephews, but thankfully IG is still a pretty happy place for me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your red and green dyed yarn looks nice, I’ll be interested to see how it knits up :).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Me too!
LikeLike
Wow I love the dye colours! ❤️
LikeLiked by 1 person
I enjoyed reading your post and everyone’s comments. I tend to think I don’t do social media (except for blogging), but when I take into account watching youtube podcasts, and just sending and replying to texts and e-mails (combined with blogging and following some blogs) “screen time” is a big chunk of a 24-hour period. Going to check out Social Dilemma on Netflix.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I also meant to say I love the crisp colors you got in that Christmas-colored hank. That should be fun to knit!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love your Christmas sock yarn and your fiber colors! You really are getting a lot done! Thanks for mentioning the documentary – I am thinking about watching it at some point this weekend. Sounds interesting!
LikeLiked by 1 person
[…] did lots of dyeing on Wednesday and have a separate post showing the self striping sock yarn and some fibres I dyed. I will still be buying blended batts […]
LikeLiked by 2 people
I love your Christmas yarn. You might convince me to take a phone break with that much productivity.
LikeLiked by 1 person
wow, what a productive few days!
I do fall off social media “naturally” every so often, and still agree that they can be a huge distraction!
LikeLike
I sooooo agree about the social dilemma and reacting to it!! I HAVE to have time limits on my phone. Gorgeous colors! Love your work!
LikeLiked by 1 person