A Funny Thing Happened

 Well you all remember the sweater that was borrowed without permission.  That it came back to me smelling like Fabreze and cigarettes. With stretch marks on the seams. 

The story continues with me washing it in a hot water bath of Dawn with a hot water rinse then hanging to dry.  I treated the sweater like it was raw fiber.  No agitation or wringing. Just squeezing the water out. Then letting it drip dry.  Well the cigarette smell was gone.  Thank goodness.  Now it just smelled like Dawn dish soap.  

The next wash was a cold water wash in Soak Wash with some mild agitation.  Followed by cold water rinses. I did 2 rinses just to make sure.  Followed by hanging in the garage to dry.  

Well today I needed a light sweater. So I went to the garage to check the smell of the wool sweater.  It smell perfectly fine and free of order.  So I put it on.  It had shrunk 2 sizes, which was fine because I have lost so much weight since I bought it  for Teri’s wedding weekend.  The seams sealed themselves back to no visible damage. I was very lucky that the sweater did not felt. I do believe that this was do to carefully handling it during the hot water wash phase. The sleeves hit tight at my wrist like when I first bought the sweater.  When John came home he said the sweater looked great.  It now fit perfectly.  

So I guess good things can come back from a complete disaster.  Although I still say the sweater was stolen and not borrowed.  Borrowed implies that they had asked for my permission to borrow my sweater.  It would not have been given since it was my only everyday and dressy sweater.  I don’t find it necessary to keep a lot of sweaters on hand because I don’t use them much.  

So now I have two everyday/ dressy sweaters.  I really hope that this does not make me a clothes horse.  

I Want to Cry

 After hand washing the shawl I blogged about yesterday in Soak Wash. I went to block the shawl.  As I was laying it out to my absolute horror I found another deliberate cut in the lace work.  So all attempts at blocking were stopped. I found 4 more holes in my shawl. Two of the holes were side to side. As you can see by the double pointed knitting needles I did my best to stabilize the area’s. I will also have John look over the shawl to see if he can find any other areas.

Thankfully I did not have time to put the thread away yesterday. So it is ready to go when the shawl dries. It will be a little harder this time because the washing brought up a beautiful halo in the mohair. The halo will also hide the repairs very well.

Living Near a Fiber Artist

Sometimes I wonder what our neighbors that of me.  Living next door to a fiber artist must be weird at times.  What got me thinking about this is that I have woven 3 scarfs since the beginning of the year.  After I am finished weaving them, I soak them in a hot bath of *Soak Wash* and very hot tap water and rough them up a bit to help set the weave.  After the water cools I rinse the scarf out of the excess dye.  Then it is time for thwacking. To do this I take the soaking wet scarf to the back yard and swing it as hard as I can on to the patio table for a few minutes.  Then it goes into the garage to dry on the line.  The same thing happens to freshly hand spun yarn too.

At other times I have freshly washed fiber drying in the sun. Perhaps blocking mats laying outside when I have to block something. Sometimes it’s a freshly wash quilt hanging on the fence.  On a nice day I might take my spinning wheel out side to spin.  If a fleece has a lot of vegetable matter I might take the carder to the driveway or front porch to card so I don’t have to sweep and vacuum a mess in the house.  I might even sit outside and knit.

I have friends who hang freshly dyed yarn outside to dry.  Even decorate fences with fiber art.  I have friends who dye yarn in their back yards too. I also will dye yarn in the back yard at times.  When I waited for Eric’s bus I used to stand outside and knit scarfs.

Does this make me weird? Does it mean that I just know how to have a lot of fun? That I don’t know when to stop having fun?

* I have been using Soak Wash for a long time.  If your local yarn or lingerie shop does not carry Soak Wash you can get it directly from Soak Wash , Raverly or Amazon. The makers of Soak Wash did not pay for this endorsement. I have not received anything for the mention in the blog.  It is just my favorite wool and lingerie wash.  I always have at least a couple of spare bottles in the laundry room so that I don’t run out.  I also recommend it to wash all of my by hand created fine washables.

TGIF

After being up almost all last night with Eric, I am truly surprised that I got so much done today. Yes both guys are still sick, but chores must get done. I do have to admit that it was a rather late start in our house today. After finally getting to bed at 4:30 am I actually took the luxury of sleeping in until 8:30am. I ignored the to do list today and puttered getting a little done here and there.

Once I had help for Eric, it was time to do some running around town. The 1st stop was at Tucson Yarn Company. I needed some information off a yarn label to complete a pattern write up. With any luck I should be able to post it sometime this weekend. I also bought their last 2 bottles of Soak Wash and am very sad that they won't be carrying it anymore.

Then it was off to pick up both pairs of new glasses. They were not suppose to come in until January so I am very happy Pearl Vision got them in so quick. The lenses are a little larger than the last pair, at least for the indoor pair so I do still need to get use to the head tilt of the progressive lenses. With the stronger lens it did make it easier to see my knitting, but that does not mean that I am going to start looking at my hands while I knit. You will not be able to tell I got new sunglasses because they are my usual Ray-Bans.

I did a great job at the grocery store. I was organized to the hilt, I had most of my coupons pulled or loaded up on my Safeway card before I got to the store. I also had a very good list. I manage to irk the lady behind me with my large order and all my coupons, but let her be irked. I managed to knock off  $140.00 from my grocery bill which was about 40% off. I did not buy what we did not need, and none of the items were bought in hoarder quantity's, I don't shop that way.

Eric did do a con job on us tonight. He was very quiet so we let him watch the movie "We Bought a Zoo" based on a true story. I would recommend this movie to you if you have not seen it already. I also managed to finish a charity scarf and start a cotton scarf for my shop during the movie. Well it is not that late but I am very tired tonight. So I am calling it a night. I hope my boss agrees.