Meantime, I’m a blue-haired old grammy. I think. Um.

I got up this morning wanting to finally tackle a dye job I’d been avoiding: a secondhand sweater I’d bought that, when it came, was not the soft green-gray I expected but rather was vivid, and I do mean vivid, fluorescent lemon/lime–but in cashmere.

Which is why I didn’t want to give it away but I sure didn’t want to accidentally wreck it.

I got up this morning and straightway filled the biggest dyepot with hot water and stirred in some teal. I’m in it now, keep going. Stir stir stir. Then I did something different: knowing the dye wouldn’t take up well if the water wasn’t simmering, I handwashed the sweater and then put it in there anyway. Worked the new color through and through and through with my hands. It changed just slightly, but for the most part resisted it at that temp. No big surprise.

All that you were ever taught (correctly) about water, temperature change and agitation being the combination that felts woolens? I did it anyway. No catchy scales on cashmere fibers, right? I squished it some more, and then took the pot to the stove. Turned it on.  Stirred like crazy, and about every ten seconds or so for a very long time I lifted it out with my dye spoon and then put it back down, careful to spread it out as it went back in: I had once had dye adhere in a pattern of dark wrinkles because I hadn’t wanted to risk the agitation. Agitate.

Pulling it out and in again like that cools down the water; it took an hour for it to finally get up to a simmer to start the half hour countdown.

I don’t do well standing on my feet. But. When I finally poured out that pot, my new soft green buttoned shirttailed collared cashmere shirt was absolutely, totally, everything I wanted. To dye for.

Perfect!

(Oh, yeah, except the buttonhole thread must have been polyester. I expected that. That’s why I didn’t make a radical change in the color; I have an accent effect rather than an accident.)

Oh, and the blue-haired grammy thing? I knew it was going to be hot work over the stove, November notwithstanding, so I waited to take my shower this morning till I’d finally finished the job. My hands were teal blue from working in that pot at the start, and washing them afterwards did not get it out. Oh well. It would probably take at least the day for it to be gone, two for the nailbeds.

I stepped out of the shower, happened to look at my hands–and then at my hair…

The Cat In The Hat Comes Back, version blue. Tell me if you spot it, okay?

Now, I’ve bought her Arctic Blend; one 2-ply skein, just to try it out, a 30/30/20/20 qiviut/baby alpaca/silk/merino mix, and dyed it myself, exploring.

It was exquisite. I could be satisfied with this soft stuff oh yes most definitely forever. It made a lot more of a lace scarf than I’d expected to get out of it–for, are you ready for this, ten bucks. Ten. And shipping.

My Mom and my sister Carolyn both wanted that one, out of all the rollaboard-suitcase’s-worth of knitted items I brought to the family reunion. Actually, all the women in the family who saw it did. Anyone would.

I lamented when the website said awhile ago that that blend was sold out; when more appeared just a few days ago, I selfishly ordered some quick before mentioning it to the blog now. Note that I am being very nice in telling you all about it when I can’t afford to stock up more than one color and weight to work with for right now, and I really really like the 2-ply. Haven’t tried the 3-ply. Yet. (Don’t take all the navy, okay, guys?)

Just one more skein… How’s that for a variant on the classic knitter line.

And then. The mailman rang the doorbell this afternoon. There was a skein of that Strawberry Red 100% qiviut from Canada, 44 grams’ worth, for me to go play with. Christmas!

I just happened to be wearing a blouse that matched the yarn as I opened the package; yes, I might like that color. Like, a lot. In the 100%, I would call it more a burgundy, myself.

She’d told me it was coming, actually, and I had just the pattern in mind for when it might arrive.

Ever planned on a name for a baby and when it was born it just wasn’t it? Yeah, I once had our family’s doctor stop by the hospital in New Hampshire to check on my newborn and then he stepped into my room to say, very pleased, that Michelle was doing well now–and I’ve always wondered if he just thought I was an exhausted new mom as I did a moment’s doubletake of an unspoken (Who? Oh right, right, we did change it), “Thanks!” (Duh.)

So. One look at that yarn and I threw out my plans and rewrote and re-mathed.

I doodled a bit to get a feel for gauge. I cast on. I kept the longtail long enough (and it came out exactly to the 1/2 inch) so that I could wrap it across the back of every bump as I purled the first row, an extra strand of yarn to strengthen that edge. Not my usual double-the-cast-on neck edge, though; this way left me the possibility of running a bit shy without having to start over and without risking wasting any.

A few minutes later I knit the first three stitches of a 126-stitch row wrong.

I thought about it a moment and realized, wait. Extra time with pure qiviut. This is a privilege. And not only that, after tinking I can weigh and measure exactly how much yarn that row took up to try to get a better idea of how far I can go with my 320 yards.

Zero grams. It came up zero grams. I can knit this stuff forever.

Point.

Changing the subject, my mom mentioned once, and I pass the word along for whatever it’s worth, that pouring boiling water down a drain was an environmentally healthy way to unblock it, and that doing so once a month, good maintenance.

Well hey. (I know, there’s a $3500 tree root job needing doing, but it’s just this one sink in the immediate term.) Let’s try at least.

What began as a thought at the first pot of water carried clear across the house quickly became action: why not use that heating-up for something I want? I’d had some yarn and a project that had needed dyeing for some time; a little pink in the sink never hurt anything. And that colourmart yarn that was a tad dark? I simmered it, guessing it to have been done in reversible dyes and it was; my midnight navy is now a happy dark-while-it’s-still-damp royal blue.

The drain is running slightly faster. There is a fine lace scarf blocking in a beautiful new burgundy from the previous taupe-brown and two skeins drying and I am very very happy with how they came out. All kinds of housework got done between water-carrying stints and that Malabrigo hat is finished, too.

We were off after that to a friends’ house for a dinner party.

Coming home, there was my quail, meandering about. Made me smile. I guess maybe this really is where he’s choosing to call home now after all; I like that.

I meandered about too, inside.

Finally, I came down and sat down at the computer a moment, my chair seven feet from the window, wondering where he might be now. That male quail immediately came *running*, so fast that he skidded on the concrete and one foot went right out from under him but he recovered fast and dignity reclaimed came right up against the window at the closest point right there–and looking in a few minutes, his head turning this way and that then facing straight on, the dear little thing sang to me.

When I made mamamama gestures back as if I were singing silently in return, he puffed out his chest and repeated himself.

It was so sweet. I am so charmed. But–dude…

I’m so sorry to have to break it to you. You’re just not my kind.

Boy, that was quick. The folks at Cottage Craft had me wait a bit while they dyed more, not having enough in the same lot, and then threw in an extra 20g as a thank you for my patience. I was surprised and very very delighted. I’d bought enough for one of my shawls (a few more skeins than shown) and now I have a little extra breathing room just in case.

Is it as soft as the stuff Rachel spun up for me? No, but hers was 100% qiviut from the raw fiber, painstakingly dehaired by hand. This is half merino.  Still. This is well carded, well spun, a fragile, fine fiber made as sturdy as one could ask it to be, and I wish I could reach out a skein to everybody through the screen and go oooh, feel this!

I do still have to go finish that baby alpaca project first, and it’s in laceweight so it’ll take me a good week or so.

Meantime, my friend Krys did a grocery run for us tonight.  We are quite grateful; Richard seems to be coming down with my germs.

p.s. and Karen? If you think you recognize that background, you do: that’s the dogwood quilt you helped tie for me around the time of our high school graduation.  Dogwood trees are rare out here but prized because, though the trees grow slowly, their blossoms last a very long time. The pink ones are, as they have always been, my favorite.

It’s the perfect sweater, for a machine knit: the perfect length, the perfect classic style, the perfectly-soft that is the best cashmere can be, and without being too-young too-tight, it goes in at the waist just enough rather than being a plain downward tube. It’s my very favorite store-bought and my husband loves it when I wear it.

I need advice. Badly.  Fellow fiber types, help me out here.

So. I have this offwhite cashmere sweater. Got a good deal; had no idea that looking it up later would show a replacement cost well above $300.

I bought a reddish-burgundy fleece vest from the well-regarded O—- company (the color was on close-out) and the weather being what it is, took it straight from the box and put it on over that sweater. I was horrified, taking the sweater off later, to find it had turned slightly pink across the upper back and definitely pink under the arms.

I contacted O—-. They said get it drycleaned, email us the receipt for that and we’ll refund it. Was it an O—- sweater? (They asked hopefully.)

No.

Oh.

What if that doesn’t do it, I asked.

Uh… (he came back in a moment.)  Let’s try first and then we’ll see.

Okay, fair enough.

So, I took it to my regular drycleaner and explained. The woman waved her hands in front of her face to ward me and it off: no, no, no can do, is dye, will not come out, do not give it to us, so sorry.

Now, I’m of the mind that if you have dye that loose that it can rub right on then it can come back out again. I hope.  If I do it right.

Do I… wash it with Purex undyed unscented laundry detergent gently by hand in tepid water? Which, by the way, is how I always wash my animal-fiber sweaters. Ignore the dry-clean-only tags–that’s a cop-out, put there because they can’t put all the information you would need on that tiny tab, as TSE Cashmere is my witness. (Click on their “About” and go to “Cashmere care”–they’re not letting me link directly to the page, sorry.) Drycleaning chemicals harshen and yellow the fibers.

So I wasn’t quite sorry when the drycleaner refused it.

I know Dharma Trading Company sells Synthrapol. I have no experience with it.  I did actually buy some awhile ago–and after reading the warning labels and that bit about prolonged exposure causing brain and neurological damage, and not even being sure it’s what I need for this problem…

I think I need to throw it back in O—-’s court before I try anything. I need to take pictures first, definitely. And one of the reasons I contacted them was simply to let them know what their (yes it’s made in China) product was doing.

I find myself with a heightened sense of appreciation for my non-damaged sweaters, so, that’s good.

I don’t usually comment at such length in someone else’s space, but her picture so grabbed me.

——

Oh. My. Goodness. That angora. That shade (you photographed it better than I did.) BOY, does that bring back memories!

My mom bought some pure angora that exact color on a trip to France before I was born, to knit for her little girls in anticipation of their being upstaged by the new one coming (me).

My oldest sister got a green sweater and she was highly allergic to it. The yellow…sat in a box for something like 45 years.

Until Mom and Dad packed up and moved out of the house they’d raised us in. I had coveted that angora all through my teens and beyond, the only one of the four girls to latch onto knitting like Mom, and Mom had always said, No, that’s not yours. I promised that to your big sister.

She out of the blue, just before the moving van came, mailed it to me after all, all these years later.

You see my blog header? That bit of yellow and those scarves?

That yarn was totally not protected, totally chewed up. I pieced it back together as best as humanly possible and then knitted it up: a scarf for my not-allergic older sister, one for my younger sister, and one each for my brothers’ wives. I dyed them partly on the grounds that no moth stages could survive the boiling water, partly on the grounds of felting together any slipping pieces beyond the splicing efforts.

And that is the story of how my blog top came to look like that. (Note that the ball of yarn has multiple ends.) After wanting that yarn for all those decades, I finally got to have it come to me–and after all that time, Mom was right: it wasn’t for me after all. It was for everybody else.

—–

(Wow. I’d totally forgotten I got seven scarves out of that box!)

One of my fellow falcon observers asked me, Oh, did you have to wait on AT&T too?

No, the IRS. Trying to get a refund straightened out.

She winced and decided that maybe the other sounded not quite so bad.  But “it’s all good,” I reassured her, problem solved now–with thanks to an extremely helpful and knowledgeable IRS agent, wherever she was. She answered all my if I/did you/can you questions well.

The other thing I did yesterday was I got a package in the mail from Colourmart: they’d had a brief sale, and I’d ordered a cone of the 70/30 cashmere/silk,  990 yards/150g, the top one there.  Nice!  A little more salmony-orange than I was expecting, but I could always find someone who’d love it and it was pretty enough to be knittable to my  eyes.

So.  I hanked and scoured it to get out the mill oils: they gray the yarn and feel like dried hair mousse. Routine step when dealing with cones. If I’m going to knit cashmere, by golly it’s going to feel like cashmere for me too, not just the recipient later, even if it takes a little extra time and effort to wash it beforehand; after all, that missing last manufacturing step is why cones are usually a lot cheaper.  And no skein ends to connect as you knit!

When that gray was out, though–my stars.  Dumbstruck. I’d never seen a change quite so dramatic.  Note that the color here is actually slightly subdued by being wet.

Who on earth ordered this screaming chunk of fluorescent traffic cone?

Um. Yeah. So now I knew why it was $20 inc shipping from England. (All their US prices include shipping–something to know on that site.)

Now, part of what had been going on in the back of my mind all along with that order was, hey, a cashmere shawl for twenty bucks. If I don’t like the color, I’ll break out the dye pot. Matter of fact, it’s been nearly two years (!) since I hefted that biggest pot, this’ll be a kick to get back to it–I love playing with watercolors, and I physically can now, so, hey, this’ll get me jumpstarted.

Done it many times. Gotten a good yarn cheap because of the color, changed the color.  But–wow. We were definitely going for that dyepot.

Only, the yarn was not.

Now, I have read that there are only so many dye-receptor molecules to be had and that a yarn that is fully saturated simply won’t take up any more.  So here I was, firing up the stove, pouring in the dye–eyeballing it, thinking about it and pouring in a lot more–I wanted a nice deep red here.  I knew just how to get there.

When the time was up the yarn had absorbed some and had let loose some of the orange (oh good)–but most of the dye simply poured right on out of there.  I hate doing that. I try to have something on hand to absorb the excess if possible when needed, but I just didn’t want to be taking up that orange. I am so not an orange person.

Then when I went to rinse the skein, it crocked: the technical term for, it bled dye. Profusely.  Repeatedly.  Redredredglugluglug, without ceasing, no matter how many times I rinsed it.  Dozens.

I knew I could never be happy with knitting something that might ruin the wearer’s other clothes  should they happen to get rained on, or walk through a lawn and have the sprinklers suddenly fire up, or have their kid go wild with a supersoaker, or… Hearing aid wearers watch for water, but normal people don’t.

I looked at that skein in today’s morning light and thought, maybe…  So I fired up the pot again, threw in vinegar, just a little more dye, if only… and put that yarn back in there. Vinegar does nothing without heat, so, heat. There you go.

At least it crocked a lot less this time.  Again, I rinsed it over and over and over. It still does a little, though, and if anyone has any suggestions at this point I’d definitely love to hear them.

The end result is, now it’s what I thought I was ordering in the first place. (It’s not quite so pink in real life, but this is close. If you enlarge their picture and this one and put them side by side, you’ll see.)  And with all that heat and agitation, it has shrunk up a bit and the eight tiny plies have melted and felted very nicely into each other while retaining the shine of the silk.

I quite like it.  But I’m still going to have to wash it some more. (I blowdried it for the moment. No mildewing my cashmere!)

So that thing about the certainty over dyeing and taxes?

It’s all a crock.

The chocolate torte’s about to be taken out of the freezer.

The silk is staying blue.

Yes, Carol, the stole is finally finished. (Quick, grab some new yarn! I can’t go without a project!)

Over the river and through the redwoods, to auntie’s house we go.  Have a blessed, wonderful Thanksgiving day, everyone.

(Is this a trick question) “Dyeing some yarn…?” I answered innocently.

“This is NOT a Random Act Of Cleanliness! It STINKS!”

Oh.  But I was desperate. I hadn’t done any dyeing for a whole solid year!  I had wanted so badly to play with my watercolors, and I had some undyed yarn I’d bought to play with, and it only took a few moments to set up…

“This is NOT what you do the day before Thanksgiving! The house is supposed to smell like food, not cooking silk! It *stinks!*”

I can’t lift my heavy dyepot yet, and I’d finally looked up microwave dyeing to see how long the stuff should cook in there.  Just a few minutes’ worth of boiling time? Hey.  I had a dedicated glass bowl, I’d covered it with plastic wrap and poked a hole in the center for venting to keep the thing from exploding dye, and to be certain of colorfastness, I did let it go for ten minutes–a third less time than on the stove.

It did not spill in any way.  It’s gorgeous.  It’s mine. I finally get to sing my own blues. TaDAAH!

I have been sentenced to spicing the pecans in penance.  The silk/wool has been sentenced to cooling outside.  “And if the squirrels dye themselves blue, Mom, they so deserve it!”

I don’t think I’ll mention yet that I’m considering throwing a little green in there in overdye mode.  Just for fun.

I bought a 70/30 silk/linen Orvis blouse at an online store’s closeout for $5 brand new, even though the color, Elm, didn’t grab me. I was hoping it would look better in person.

I tried it on.   I looked like a case of Dutch Elm Disease in it.  It truly was not flattering.

But I’d bought it knowing that if I really wanted to, I could change the shade if I got desperate enough to risk wrecking the thing. First, I asked myself: would I ever wear this ahead of everything else in my closet? No, definitely not. Michelle, would you wear this?

As pants in that color, she answered, okay; near my face, no.

So.  In the If You Try This At Home department, know that the thread used to sew a silk garment will not be of the same fiber as the fabric and probably won’t take up any dye–so you don’t want to change the color so far that the newly-contrasting stitching clashes with it.

I also knew my Jacquard acid dyes would take up into the silk fibers but not the linen–although, yellow is the easiest color to obliterate from view. I decided I was safe there.

I got the water to a good simmer and the dye well stirred in while the blouse soaked in hot water. I then lowered the blouse in bottom first, wet sleeves dangling down–not all in a balled-up crumpled heap, but pulling it downwards with my wooden spoon as it went in quickly.  During the half hour I had it on the stove, I stood over it almost constantly, stirring often, lifting it out and letting it back down time and again so that it didn’t develop strong and weak spots of color–no tie-dyeing effects wanted. That in-and-out action also helped keep the water temperature even so it wouldn’t get up to a hard boil.

And it all worked. I absolutely love how it came out. Not bad, for five bucks and a little time and work!