The good news is, my sleeves are really, really close to being done. The bad news is, closing ceremonies were a little bit ago, I still have button bands to do, I don't even have buttons yet, and the notion of working sixteen more rows of garter stitch in the round makes me... well let's just say it would probably be better not to think about it.
Motion sickness always, always sneaks up on me. I hate it.
So, we could talk about how my failure to finish the sweater before the closing ceremonies might have something to do with the fact that I started my planning about a day before the Winter Olympics started. That seems logical. Or it might have something to do with how insufficiently dedicated I was to this project, spending valuable knitting time on mittens (that also aren't finished, aarg). Or maybe the ridiculously lax approach I take to issues of gauge continues to seriously impede my forward progress. Or it might have to do with my vulnerability to distraction with shiny new projects.
We could talk about those things, or we could focus on some shiny new projects! Chagrined about my lack of planning for the Winter Olympics, which I had known were coming up for, oh, about three-odd years, I started planning well in advance for Malabrigo March.
Years ago, I went to my LYS in search of some nice red Malabrigo for a scarf. In desperation and not-so-great indoor light, I convinced myself that Geranio was red enough. Geranio is about the pinkest pinkest pink that any pony-owning, fairy princess nymph worth her salt could dream up:
but I got some and cast on for a one-row scarf anyway. The scarf was too wide, and the needles were too long, and it was all just so grotesquely pink that I put the project down and wandered off for three years.
So of course the middle of the Knitting Olympics is the perfect time to make one's first foray into Kool-Aid dyeing in preparation for Malabrigo March!
The What a Kool Way to Dye group on Ravelry has a ton of useful advice on Kool-Aid dyeing, so I read what they had to say, hunted down a bunch of packs of Black Cherry unsweetened soft drink mix, and went to town.
I used 9 packs of Kool-Aid for two skeins of worsted, and I now know that I should have used more. The rule of thumb seems to be one pack for every ounce of yarn for a nice color, but the more you use, the darker the color.
Husband came up with the brilliant idea of boiling a pot of water without any precious, feltable yarn in it, and then turning the gas down until it stopped boiling. My plan involved waiting until it boiled, freaking out, and then way overcompensating by turning it down way too far, then swinging back and forth between too hot and almost off over the course of several hours. His way ended up taking longer than the about-30 I was expecting based off of internet tutorials, but probably still short of an hour.
Probably the best thing about Kool-Aid dyeing is that you know exactly when it's done because the water turns clear, the dye having been all sucked up into the yarn.
Here it is in a nice, possibly deceptive, low light.
Still pink, but a pink I can live with. My original plan involved making the Daphne Hat and a Saroyan scarf -- in accordance with my new "Make Things That Actually Match" Initiative, but I'm not sure if there will be enough yarn. Maybe I'll start with the hat and then see what kind of scarf/cowly thing can be made out of whatever's left.
There is an end in sight with the sweater, and the mittens, and maybe not so much the socks, but I'll start new socks soon, too.
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