Wednesday, June 14, 2006

What was I thinking?

Dear Cynthia,

First, I want to say, "Thank you", to Tenizmom, Lauren, and Sarah for their kind comments, and for guessing the number of dishcloths which a one-pound cone of Kitchen Cotton will yield. Also, I beg you to be patient with me..... Anybody who has read a post or two from this blog will quickly realize that there is no apparent logic regarding what I decide to knit on any given day, and though I am working on the dishcloths in the background, given the amount of yarn in a pound of Kitchen Cotton, we might not have our answer until the end of summer (hopefully 2006). (Not sure what I was thinking about possibly working exclusively on dishcloths until the one pounder is all used up....) So again, please hang in there. I haven't forgotten, and I'm quite curious about the answer myself! Also, if anybody else would care to venture a guess, entries are not closed. I think I can still manage the tabulations even if the number of entries doubles.

Second, you may remember this 100% cotton bright **white** sweater (what was I thinking) which I knit last summer, my own pattern, having cables along the front and for the ribbing of the lower edges. Bright white. I am not the best one for laundry tips, though I have one today. Here I have zoomed in on the right sleeve, so that you may see the cable ribbing detail and the large blue spot on the elbow (which I'm guessing you noticed long before the cable ribbing detail grabbed your attention). I wash all of my sweaters in the washing machine, on the delicate cycle, cold water, minimum agitation. It works great, and the water is sufficiently flung out of them so they don't take too long to dry. However, if one might be drying sweaters bunk bed style, having one laying on the floor, and then another on a little sweater dryer having mesh which holds the sweater about five inches off of the floor, and if the sleeve of that sweater on the "top bunk" might be bright white and come into contact with the blue sweater on the "lower bunk", and some sort of capillary wicking thing happens, it is quite possible that there might be a transfer of some blue dye. AAUGH!!!! I'm not sure what to do. I think I'll try washing the white sweater in a weak bleach solution, all by itself, but if anybody in blog land might have any thoughts on this....please share!

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)
P.S. I didn't even know about world wide knit-in-public day! I'm with you, though. I don't need a special day to do that.
P.P.S. I'm very excited about your lace, and will enjoy watching it unfold!

1 comment:

Elizabeth said...

Have you worked on that stained elbow yet? You could try soaking just the affected area in a bleach solution. Or use hydrogen peroxide: it might be a little less harsh on the fibers. If the dye is that unstable, it might not stick to the white sweater very well.