And the sweater progresses
The Ink sweater is coming along rather quickly, especially on the 10.5 needles. I've finished the front and back, and am now about 1/3 of the way through the first sleeve. Sadly, grey stockinette stitch is about the least interesting thing I can think of to photograph let alone look at (we'll overlook the fact that I still can't find my camera cable, shall we?), so no photos yet.
In other crafting news, I'm in the middle of fiddling about with a length of fabric that I accidentally washed incorrectly. Normally, all the fabric I use for historical recreation gets a thorough hot wash/cold rinse in the machine to make sure that it does all the shrinking it's going to do right away, and so I don't get surprised with accidental doll clothing later on. So I received this lovely linen/wool blend fabric, the result of a group auction spearheaded by some LiveJournal friends, and absentmindedly tossed the whole thing into the washer.
Well, dear readers, that certainly is not the recommended prewash method for that particular blended fabric. While the two washes I gave it did remove the sizing/finish and thus the rather odd, strong plastic smell, the yardage shrank about 40%. Whoops.
This gives me some license to play with it, since I didn't quite have a purpose for it in mind when I purchased it. So I did a burn test (point of interest: something plastic melted off the fabric) and a bleach test (yup, bleach eats wool but not linen). In the process of the bleach test I discovered that once the wool was gone, the linen stretched back out to its original width. Oh, now that's interesting.
I mixed up a weak black dye solution and soaked a strip, which resulted in a colour very close to gunmetal. Not what I would like, but in the process I discovered that the material will stretch back to shape when it's soaking wet. It's still slightly fulled, but nothing like the 70s sofa cushion texture it previously had.
Tonight, I picked up a few packets of black dye and a few packets of deep violet dye. I'm going to halve the yardage and dye part black and part violet. Instead of running it through the dryer, I'm going to stretch the fabric and let it hang dry. I'll keep you all posted as events develop.
On a more personal note than is usually found in this blog, I'd just like to remind folks that just because someone has a different opinion than you do and bothers to express it does not mean that person is attacking you, trying to pick a fight, or failing to contribute to your blog. So please, if you have an opinion that's different from mine, or you notice me making a sweeping generalisation or assumption about something, do point it out. I promise I won't yell at you or accuse you of having bad manners.
Comments
I bought everything to make the INK sweater and have some questions on it, can you help me?
Sure! I'll try to help if possible-- I have finished and worn mine a couple of times now.
Kate
Beatrice,
Did you make any changes to the pattern? Did you use the same yarn as called for? I'm not crazy about the way this is turning out. Had I known the yarn is dry clean only I would have substituted something else. Any input is greatly appreciated.
Kathy
I made mine with Knitpicks Wool of the Andes. I can't recommend it for a sweater unless you have a high tolerance for itch. I'm thinking about using either their Mainline or their Andean Silk. I rarely use the yarn a pattern calls for-- I'm kind of cheap.
Kate/Beatrice