Friday, March 03, 2006

Weird

The Continuing Argyle Vest Saga:

I tried to felt it today. The creme parts felted very nicely, but the lilac parts didn't felt at all. So what I've ended up with is a very skinny, long felted argyle vest that is bumpy. And the ribbing didn't felt at all (it's lilac). Can someone tell me what happened? I've felted before, but this has never happened to me. I feel silly asking this - and no, I am not a new knitter - but aren't colored yarns supposed to felt? Oh well. If I can find a way to cut it up and make a little purse out of it, it'll look very shibori.

I haven't been very productve knitting-wise. I was working on the body of my Fair Isle cardi, but it was nice and warm this week, so I was having trouble finding motivation to knit with the grey Brown Sheep Nature Spun Worsted. Temperatures in the 70s make me want to knit springy things, like -

- the Lace Cashmere Pullover from Loop d Loop
- something from the Rebecca Soft Kid booklet
- the Prairie Tunic from IK
- the Nothin' But a Tee from Magknits (archives, not current)
- Eunny's argyle vest (yes, I do want to take another stab at it)
- fun socks (okay, socks aren't necessarily springy, but I still want to knit them more than I want to knit a Fair Isle cardigan that I probably won't be able to wear until October)

So yesterday I decided to put the cardi in a Ziploc bag and mark it UFO, and I wound the green mohair I bought from Wendy and started an Airy Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts. I don't think I can mess this project up. And I think it'll be darling with a crisp white oxford and some wide-leg pants.

3 comments:

Wendy said...

Dude, that bites. At least now it has a really cool texture. Somebody would snap it up to make a recycled textures bag from, I'll betcha.

Eunny's explanation seems most likely, unless the company uses a realy rough pocedure in their dyeing and felted the yarns as they dyed them--but there would be a difference in the feel as you worked with them so I don't think it's very likely. And superwash is more expensive, so I don't see them using different bases for their dyed yarn.

Anonymous said...

A tragic tale indeed.

I do remember hearing that the dyeing process will indeed affect felting characteristics.

Not much comfort to you though at this point.

knitncycle said...

Ouch! That's painful but maybe you can turn it into that handbag. I'm not sure why the colored yarn wouldn't felt but something in the dyeing process makes sense to me.