Dye Another Day

Warning: it is not likely the awful puns will cease any time soon. I seriously almost called this post "Hooked on a Felting."

To refresh your memory, Reader: the Tiny Tote at right was born out of a swatch of Kool Aid-dyed yarn and I-cord. Call it Ishmael, if you'd like. I decided to try felting it, both because of the larger felted tote bag project I've got going and because I needed to do my laundry anyway.

I tossed the bag in with a load of T-shirts and underwear and hoped that it wouldn't dye my clothes pink. It came out of the wash as it did in the picture at left, and I encourage you to click on the picture to get the larger version if you'd like a sense of how the felting works. Wikipedia tells me that it has something to do with scales on the wool and the zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
In any case, the washer, as you can see, felted TT (TM) a little bit, but not overmuch. Small things, I gather, are supposed to be more difficult to felt than larger projects. I probably should have put it in a pillowcase and with less other stuff (you do need something to agitate the wool, like a pair of jeans or a towel), but it costs $1.50 to do a load of laundry here and I've got bills to pay, if you know what I mean.

But I wanted the bag to be more awesome, so I worked at the material in a basin of hot water in the kitchen sink, and that seems to have done the trick. It felted excellently, as you can see, I hope, at right, and didn't take more than maybe 20 minutes to do. I can't imagine doing the felting by hand on a project much larger than a mitten, say. In the interests of full disclosure, I will note that the water became slightly pink, and not because I was working my poor fingers to the bone. The color of the tote didn't appear to fade, but it's certainly not entirely colorfast. In ordinary usage, I don't think the color would rub off, though.

And the surprise (trendy, bourgeois) usage: a little iPod bag. There are some obvious flaws to this, the biggest being that one's headphones obviously can't fit in the bag unless one uses earbuds. In the picture, my Phyllida stands in for Ellen's Buddy; here's to hoping for a long, happy, copyright-violating future for everyone.

Dye Hard with a Vengeance.

Another yarn story, Reader: I turned my Black Cherry samples into a a felted Tiny Tote, almost as awesome as it is alliterative. I had begun thinking I would just knit a swatch and leave it at that, but the swatch grew in direct proportion to my knitted dreams*. My second thought was to make a little soap saver bag for Ellen's package, and that's what my goal was until I reached the final stage of the project. I'm an unrepentant spoiler junkie, but I'll make you wait until the end of the post to reveal the twist**.

The unevenness of the dye on the yarn actually turned out to be a great effect--I'm not a great lover of variegated yarn, but the swatch came out pleasantly homey. The bottom half of the swatch is the khaki and the top, the cream, but I don't think you can much tell the difference.

Having started life as four separate bits of yarn and reached middle age as a flat swatch, the tote is crudely put together. I'd certainly recommend doing it in the round. I used size 4 straight needles and then just a tapestry needle to sew up the bottom and the sides. I didn't try anything fancy with the binding--just whip stitch--and that's probably the least aesthetically pleasing part of the whole thing, because I had to use the khaki yarn to do it, having run out of the Black Cherry.

The Black Cherry was sacrificed to a good end: I gave I-cords a try, and damned if they aren't just the best thing ever. I'm supposed to use I-cord to make the straps on the Tote of Doom (you can see it behind the swatch-in-progress) and was anxious to give it a go beforehand. During the OJ Simpson trial, I made a tube of finger-weaving probably long enough to wrap around the whole house. I believe I had the vague idea that I could use it to escape my bedroom during a fire. I should note that our house only had one floor. In any case, I-cords are certainly an advance in tubular yarn crafts.

Voila, Reader: a Tiny Tote casting tiny tshadows on the wall. I'm going to keep you in suspense until tomorrow for the actual felting. You'll love it, I promise--hey, where are you going? Come back! For god's sake--

*My dreams are not, of course, actually knitted, but I suspect that's only a matter of time. There's a scene in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie where the improbability drive turns the Heart of Gold into yarn dolls. It's not impossible, is all I'm saying.
**Lies, all lies.