Miscellaneous Yarning

I have been on a yarn binge--yarn I ordered immediately after my accident when I was not quite in my right mind. Did you know yarn etailers won't take back yarn bought in a fit of agitative depression? How rude.

I bought an enormous quantity of White Buffalo. It's been discontinued and was on sale. Buy ten get a discount. So I did. And if one buys ten one might as well by another ten...well, I had to get it, it was such a bargain. Sue at Little Knits also had a sale so I now have a ginormous stash of Cascade 220. Sue, by the way, is a wonderful, friendly, funny person who will really go out of her way to track down what you want and make suggestions. She is quite an enabler. (I am not affiliated with her store--honest.)

I love the White Buffalo. I am using it to make this bag.

I am including this picture to show the size in relation to a video cassette. Personally, I get really frustrated when there is no way to judge the size of a WIP or FO.

Now that I expressed my frustration over pictures with no size reference I have discovered that I do not take a good picture that will show size differences well. I am going to have to finagle the pattern. It started out to be the Satchel from the summer issue of Knitty but I'm using all six plies of the White Buffalo and if I work the whole pattern it's going to weigh a ton and be big enough for a single-car garage. I don't find the yarn to be difficult to work with and that came as a nice surprise since I bought it and knew nothing about it at all. I did look it up in Knitter's Review after I ordered it--how responsible is that? I have separated the strands and made two-ply and three-ply balls out of it. The strands break if I try to hurry but they twist back together like magic. Patience is the key word when working with this yarn--and an extensive repertoire of expletives is a must.

The Cascde 220 is, as a knittyhead told me, just a good ol' yarn. It's easy to work with, comes in a bazillion colors, has great stitch definition, and felts up a storm. I finished the Cable Edge Poncho in Cascade 220 #7824. The pattern is from Knit It! and has so many errors it could make a newbie cry.

It would be nice if I had live bodies in my wearables, wouldn't it. I suffer from model shortage.

Since I had the Casade in white I decided to try my hand at Kool-Aid dying. I studied up on it and jumped in. My first effort was a haphazard drizzling of Kool-Aid over wet yarn which I had placed in an enamel roasting pan and then popped into a 250 degree oven for forty-five minutes.

It's a pretty color way with grape and orange (to make brown), orange alone, and cherry. Well, I thought it was cool and easy and, except for the headache and tightness in my chest, a good experience. I didn't try to inhale the powder, it just happened. Next day I used a stock pot and a hot plate outdoors and cooked up the ugliest mess you ever saw. I can't get a picture to do it justice--or injustice. No more painting, I am going to stick to one flavor dyes for a while.< I had no idea Kool-Aided yarn would smell so badly.

I'm off to work on WIP's so I can take more pics.