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02/14/2006
hey. kool aid.
Okay, so I admit it.
I'm a knitter.
I knit.
So do a lot of people.
I also tend to get bored and haven't ever knitted anything of any size before. And I've been knitting for almost 10 years now. Can you say hats, scarves and felted bags, oh my?
So I decided to take on the hourglass sweater from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. [I did knit a sweater once before, but this was loooong before I understood the concept of gauge and fit. I couldn't get it over my head.]
I don't currently have the cash to purchase 15+ hanks of Noro's Cash Iroha to fit my plus sized body. (pun, completely unintentional, I swear.) so I decided to shop in my stash.
I had ten hanks of Handsome Harry's Hanks by Renaissance Yarns that I won back in December of 2003 from Wendy. She had this really cool contest wherein she encouraged her readers to be stalkers. Evidently I was the stalkiest of them all and I won.
Behold the free yarn goodness:
photo from wendyknits
So anyhow, it's great yarn, and the price was certainly right, and there's a LOT of it, each hank is 200 yards (if I'm remembering correctly, the tags are all downstairs) which is good, cause I'm a big girl.
Do you sense a 'but' coming up?
BUT the yarn is gray... I can't wear gray, at least not a whole sweater in stickinette in gray. So I decided to try some kool aid dyeing after seeing this article.
Who knew? Kool aid stains.
[my mom knew, please don't remind her of the 15 year kool aid resentment, courtesy of my cousin Wesley {who by the way, no one has seen in years. Coincidence? I don't know, I mean, I don't think my mom is connected, but anything is possible.]
So I tried it... and here's what happened:
counterclockwise from l: lemon lime, blue raspberry, grape, cherry, and the original gray
and here's a photo of the sweater in progress:
on top is a sleeve, with cherry kool aid dyed seed stitch edging, I don't really like the way the hemming looks on the body of the sweater, by the way, the really big thing under the sleeve? that's the body of the sweater, waiting for sleeves and the yoke.
I hope to have at least one sleeve done and attached to the body by the end of the week, but the 12" addi turbo is really hard on my hands, the needle part is so short that I am having trouble with it, but it is going faster than when I was working on dpns, so I'm just gonna hang in there.
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Comments
Thank you for posting about your dying success on my blog. Your yarn is gorgeous. I have a three day weekend coming up in April and I may just spend it trying my hand at dying again. I've been using the microwave method, without success, so I think I may have to switch to the boiling method next time.
Posted by: Margit | 02/27/2006
Thank you for posting about your dying success on my blog. Your yarn is gorgeous. I have a three day weekend coming up in April and I may just spend it trying my hand at dying again. I've been using the microwave method, without success, so I think I may have to switch to the boiling method next time.
Posted by: Margit | 02/27/2006