Neat Stuff!!

When we took our fibre up to the mill for processing the owner of the mill was telling me about a class she just taught, she said she took a knitted tube of fabric and they dyed it and then knit it up as they unknit it off the knitted tube???? This took a while to soak into my brain.....sounded weird??? You knit up some fabric and then you unknit it (or rip it out) and then you reknit it into something else?? Finally I sort of got it and she gave me a small piece to try out. Well the piece of knitted tube sat around for a couple of weeks and I would look at it from time to time. Then last week they phoned to say my processed fibre was ready to pick up, I thought I better do something with the piece of knit tubing before I went back up. So I went and unearthed my dyes that I had tucked away during Christmas and thought I would just use the dye colors I had mixed already. So Soaked the knit tube in vinegar and water and got the dyes ready. Put down a length of plastic wrap and lay the knitted tube on it and proceeded to apply dye, turned it over and added a bit more dye as it did not seem to soak through enough, then I remembered reading that if you took a rolling pin and rolled it over what you were painting with dye it would set it in better. So I put another piece of plastic wrap on the top of the knitted tube and proceeded to roll it across........ALL THIS BLUE DYE RAN OUT THE END!!!! I grabbed paper towel and soaked it up thinking I had ruined the whole thing......but o.k. better carry on. Since then I have been told you do not ROLL the rolling pin across you use the rolling pin to put weight on your dyed piece in a up and down motion, you are not making a pie!!! I sealed the sides of the wrap and then folded the package in half and then rolled it into a roll sealing the end. I had a pot on the stove with some water in the bottom and a rack about an inch above the water and let it steam for about twenty minutes. Now usually I would leave it overnight and give the dyes time to set but I was in a hurry for I carefully lifted the roll out and sat it on a rack to cool. As soon as it cooled I rinsed it a couple of times to get the extra dye out of it and laid it out to dry. All the time I was doing this I was thinking about what pattern would work the best with this and remembered a multi-directional scarf pattern I had so thought I would try that. The next morning I started knitting the scarf pattern getting more excited by the minute, now there was knitting....and there was ripping out...and there was knitting......you get the picture, there are alot of rows to this pattern, it is not hard but you have pay attention to what you are doing. And the pictures will tell you all!! I was so excited!! Now I was going to pick up some more of the knitted tubes when I went to the mill and my head was full of all the ways I was going to dye them.......when I got to the mill....My friend Catherine had been there before me......and bought all they had knit up. Grrrr Grrrrr. But they did have a few of the light grey ones knit up that their dye person was getting ready to dye...so I bought them. I like dyeing the grey as the colors come out in muted shades, so that will keep me happy until the mill can get more of the white knit up. Now I think what they do is knit them on the sock knitter but just make long tubes, I am going to ask if I took some alpaca up would they knit me some alpaca/wool mix tubes??? It would make great scarves??? Right?? I better finish the scarf and then get another tube dyed.