Can We Drink It

I went to visit my grandfather twice last week. After getting home the second time, I realized that I forgot my current WIP (work in progress) at my uncle's house. Not only was my wip there, there were also some beads that I had purchased to attempt some bead work. That will have to wait until I go and visit again, which will not happen for a little while because everyone who had visited my grandfather has become ill with some funky stomach virus. I am one of the lucky few who has recovered rather quickly. Everyone else has been out for at least 4+ days.

So having left my Mia Shrug and the beads for a future project, I had no choice but to start on this:

They are the Rib and Cable Socks by Nancy Bush from the Fall '05 Interweave Knits. Though they are not my first attempt at making socks, they are my first attempt using the wee little size 1/2.25 mm needles. Up until this point the smallest needle that I had used was a size 4. It is almost like knitting with toothpicks, but I am actually enjoying the process. I am enjoying it so much that I have already started to make mental notes about who will be receiving handknit socks for Christmas. So far the count is up to 6.

I also have my first attempt at Kool-Aid dying under my belt. I was a little skeptical at first, because for starters, I was not dying a natural fiber. I was dying nylon, and from what I had read, you can only dye "natural" fibers using the Kool-Aid method. I did not want to have to purchase another set of pots for this (I wanted to be non-toxic and all), so I did it anyway. I used 4 packets of black cherry and it took about 1.5 hours rather than the 30 minutes that was suggested here, but this is what it looked like:

When I first put the cord into the pot.

After 30 minutes.

After 1 hour

About this time is when hubby called home to tell me he was on his way. During the conversation, I was telling him about the Kool-Aid and the next thing he asked was, "Can we drink it after you are done with it?" Now I am not completely sure if he was serious or not, but let's just hope he wasn't.

The water never actually got as clear as I thought it would, so after 1.5 hours, it was a little clearer than the picture above. (I forgot to take a picture of it because I had to start dinner, and well, you know how that goes.) The next thing I did after taking it out of the pot was to rinse it and to my amazement, there was no color that bled or ran. I really have to say that I was really impressed. I then let it dry overnight and spent way too much time winding it (there has to be a better way, if you know any ways that would prevent ten gazillion knots, advice would greatly be appreciated.) Finally, this is what I ended up with:

The color is showing pretty true on my monitor. Not bad for my first attempt at dying.