Big day yesterday

It turned out that Saturday night when I went to an informal church meeting, a lot of the ladies/teens there like to knit! Two wanted to learn, so Sunday we brought extra yarn and needles and had some lessons. One is my age - she picked it up so quick I know she's a lifer. That's always good to see.

I decided to use the Karabella Breeze for my Sweet sweater. It's the one in the Rowan book my folks got me for Christmas. I've been swatching all weekend - first the swatch you saw on #8s/9s, then on 5's, and finally on 6's. It's making a beautiful fabric at 5.5 to the inch, and right now the main concern I have is whether to cast on 400+ stitches for the bottom ruffle or knit a hem into this garment. I'm thinking, I like the shape but want a hem and rolled stockinette cuffs instead of a ruffle. And I want the whole thing to be fairly long - not long like butt-covering, but longish, because I have a long torso and unlike some fashion mag editors, I like to emphasize that. "Short stumpy body" is not my idea of well-proportioned, especially when it involves wearing jeans that go all the way up to my waist - ugh! I have a t-shirt that is the perfect length, so I'll measure it before I start.

As for dyeing, I experimented with using four colors. They came out way, way oversaturated and I'm still rinsing the stuff and getting this odd Mello-Yello colored water out of it. This after the water in the microwave was clear! It didn't stay, is what I'm saying. The brown came out nice. Copper is kind of a crazy canyon rock color, and I really like it, but it's much stronger than I was expecting. The nice mellow blue turned a bit indigo, and the green is just sort of blah and medium. It may be that after my faded brown experience this weekend I over-saturated the dyes. No pictures since I'm still rinsing it, but I'm toying with the idea of soaking the whole thing in blue and just seeing what happens.

I'm going to be late if I don't dry my hair (do you detect a theme?).