Clapotis is nearly finished

I haven't been blogging much lately because I have been horribly busy with work. This appears to be the new status quo, much to my dismay. I received my work laptop yesterday which means that I no longer have an excuse to not work from home. Thankfully, I have a couple of projects that will be do-able now that I am working on a laptop and not an internet-based interface. The cool part is that this laptop will replace my CPU at work. Don't ask me how, I'm not a techie. I just know that they set up something called a docking station and take the CPU away. I keep my monitor, keyboard and mouse, but it all hooks into the docking station and the laptop. Guess I better not forget it at home! On to knitting news... Clapotis has been an intriguing pattern to knit because it is well thought out. (Yes, I realize that I am WAAAY behind the times with this particular project.) I am working my way through the decrease rows and hope to finish this weekend. The use of knit and purl stitches at the begining of each row impresses me because it keep both edges looking almost identical. I am still liking this yarn even if it is brighter than I had hoped in the second skein. I have noticed that my bamboo needles are staining from this second skein of yarn, so I hope that when I wash it, the bright teal will tone down a bit. Right now it is rather eye-searingly bright. Hopefully the recipient will like it. Tonight I made my first foray into dyeing. The colors didn't come out quite as intensely has I had hoped, so I may try again. I used overdyed the 60% off gray yarn that I purchased a while ago. The color just didn't do much for me. I used some Paas Easter egg dye that I picked up after Easter. I think I used way to much yarn for the dye because it was exhausted right away. Tomorrow, I will pick up a coordinating Kool-aide color and try it again. Poor Eric is not thrilled that I used one of our regular pots for this experiment. I will try to make a run to a second hand shop for a used pot, but I definately want one that is stainless steel. I will post pictures of this after I get the colors just right. Overall dyeing was much more fun than I thought it would be. At some point, I am going to have to get the KnitPicks dye-your-own yarn and try it again.