fail... or happy accident?

After I frogged that thrift store sweater, I decided to try one of mine I'd decided not to keep. This one is 100% lambswool:

I took it apart and tried to frog it and ran into issues. The yarn is thin and kept breaking. So... I tossed the pieces into a lingerie bag and threw them in the washer to felt a bit. After, I cut them up and dyed the pieces with Kool-Aid.

The small pieces from the yoke are destined to become catnip kitty toys.

The one on the right was left in the original color.

Not sure what the lower sleeves will end up becoming.

I had fun playing around with different techniques dyeing all of these though!

The upper sleeves were fun too.

I especially like how this one turned out.

It almost looks like graffiti.

The body of the sweater will most likely become a bag of some sort.

into the frog pond

After I dropped off an entire Jeep full of stuff at Goodwill today, I went inside to have a look around. I've been having fun dyeing, but am nearly out of white yarn to dye and thought maybe I could find a sweater to frog. I didn't find any sweaters made from animal fibers that were in good condition. The only possibility in the right fiber/color was slightly felted. 

I did find something else though:

A loooong sweater in 60% cotton/40% acrylic in a really nice, deep, chocolate brown.

It had a white tag (50% off this week!), was really soft and still had the tag from TJ Maxx ($50!?) so it was in perfect condition. Well, other than one of the ties being torn off and taped to the Goodwill tag. I checked the seams to be sure frogging would go smoothly - pieces knit individually not cut from larger pieces. The yarn reminds me of Lion Brand Cotton Ease, but a little thinner.

I got to work on it right away:

Reilly tried to help. =)

Frogging was quick and easy with the help of my ball winder.

Not the best pics, but the weather's been crazy here today, quickly flipping from brief sunny moments to pouring rain with thunder and lightning and I didn't want to wait to deconstruct this sweater. Even though the sweater was a size small, it was about 45" long and I ended up with 810g of DK weight yarn - plenty for just about anything I'd want to make with it - all for only $7 including tax. =)

new kitten

I apparently didn't think there were enough kitties around this house:

Yep, two FOs in one week! Yeah, yeah, they're both super quick, but I hadn't finished anything since March so it counts. =)

The new kitty is very well-trained and already on the cat tree:

 

and playing with the other kitties:

though things do get a little rough at times with Xander:

Thankfully, Baxter has allowed the new kitten to take refuge on the kitty tree with him:

actual knitting!

With all this newly dyed yarn around, I finally found a little knitting inspiration!

I was tipped off by a friend to the 3-hr cowl pattern and decided to give it a go with the hank I dyed Saturday. What do you think?

I think the stitch pattern worked okay with the dye job. I did get quite a bit of pooling, but it doesn't bother me.

I'm not a fast knitter and bigger projects seem to suck the knitting mojo out of me. lol I have an alpaca blanket that may never get finished. I love what's done, but it's reeeeeeally slow going. And I have a pair of socks languishing in their bag. I also still have a crochet bag that's just a bottom at this point. None of these are calling my name. I suppose I just need instant gratification. =)

dyed in the wool

Ah, yes. My new favorite hobby has surfaced once again. After getting my errands run on Friday, I had Saturday to do as I pleased (thanks to rain taking yard work off the table). So, I pulled out some wool and my packets of Kool-Aid and got to work!

I started with some variegated wool that I'd picked up on clearance a few years back. I used some for a pair of slippers that were a gift, but still had about 3.5 skeins and no interest in making anything with that colorway. So I decided to over-dye it! Ugly can be fixed. I had three partial skeins and started with those, using a packet of mixed berry KA for each. The result? Perfect!

The original is on the right and the new, muted skeins on the left.

Pretty, no?

I'm thinking those two full skeins might be taking a blue bath soon too!

Then, I used more mixed berry, lemon-lime, pink lemonade and black cherry/grape for an off-white skein.

This one, I'm not so sure about. We'll see once it's been knit up if it'll need another date with some Kool-Aid or not.

I'm not so sure about that lighter, pinkish segment.

After finishing those, I was still inspired to try another technique I'd seen - dyeing yarn while wound in a cake. First, a bath in lemon-lime:

I then flipped it and gave it a bath in mixed berry.

Poking around in the cake, I realized I apparently wound my cake a bit too tightly and the color didn't make it to the center of the cake so I mixed up some more of both colors and used my baster to inject color into the center, nuking, checking and squirting in more where needed.

After winding this back into a skein, I could really see the results:

Oh, so pleased with this! I'm not entirely sure it's worth the extra effort to dye in the cake though. I think I could get very similar results from hand painting and could avoid having to re-skein a wet cake of yarn.

 My efforts yesterday did produce a colorful living room while things dried:

I'm already thinking what else is in my stash that I want to over-dye. =)