Bed Of Roses
Once upon a time, I bought a bunch of my favorite yarn on sale. This was not an unusual occurrence, except that the yarn in question was not only my favorite kind, it was also an extremely unfortunate color:
And by "unfortunate", I mean so ugly as to cause Scottish Terriers to fall instantly asleep to avoid looking at it. Don't get me wrong: I'm no pink-hater. I like a good pink better than the next guy, and I will go to some fairly respectable lengths of denial to include pink in my stash, especially when it's on sale. But I just couldn't find a permanent place in my heart for seven skeins of Pepto Bubble Gum.
I shut my eyes and held on to the seven skeins of Pepto, knowing that one day a pattern would come along which called for my favorite yarn, and probably on a day when I lacked the wherewithal to dash out and buy anything new.
Sure enough, I revisited a pattern-in-waiting this morning by happenstance, and was consumed by the urge to cast on for it immediately. Being a confirmed
Real knitters know that acid-based dyes are the best way to go for changing the color of woolen string. I even have plans to get me summa that one day, when I grow up. But today is not that day (tomorrow is not looking good, either), so I headed straight to the Kool-Aid aisle in the discount store across the street from the dentist where my kids were in adjoining recliners this morning. For reasons defying all explanation, K Mart was all out of Kool-Aid today, except for Lemonade, which would not have been much help to my Pepto Gum yarn. Unphased, I grabbed some Rit, reasoning that a complete disaster with it would still not be worse than the color I was starting with.
Since the whole pursuit had "Knitting Gods, Smite Here" written all over it, I decided to go for broke and try kettle dyeing for the first time, while I was at it.
The result? Even knitters have to catch a break now and then, even if it's only a game of odds:
The unfortunate Pepto Bubble is magically transformed to a Bed of Roses. And how smug am I that I held on to that poor pink yarn? Little bit.
Lesson? Ugly Yarn + Cheap Dye + Pressing Need to Cast On = Acts of desperation where three wrongs can make a right.
Cover me: I'm going in...
Mary, that looks AWESOME! You're amazing. BTW, I still have a super cool non-knitting related gift for you. When are we getting together, Ms. Jetset?
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Awesome! Great job. The new color is really lovely, and hey- great pattern choice!
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Holy cow! It's gorgeous!
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I really enjoy your blog..Put a thought in my head..I have some vintage (Ha!) yarn that could use a dye bath...
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I love this pattern, I hope the yarn meets your expectations. I look forward to seeing it finished.
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Beautiful! And you can add "thrifty" to that list of labels for this project. and inspirational.
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Wow! What a transformation. You made that yarn go from blah to Va-Va-Va-Voom! Can't wait to see what you make with it.
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OMG = obviously you spent too much time with your mother - there are similarities in personality & projects.
only you can write. I feel for the Hufflings (absentee mothers is a mixed blessing)
My new computer showed your blog as light blue on white. Then I fell (in bed) and the screen went to 30 degrees from flat and the letters went black??? A lot easier for old eyes to read.
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