Simon Says

In the blogosphere, there are a few blogs I read often, and one of them is http://fibermania.blogspot.com/ .Melody manages to delight and inspire me regularly, so it is always fun to see what she is up to. Last week she knit the fabulous Simon Cowl, out of leftover sock yarns, and it just delighted me. The lovely colors and the simple elegance of the design were in perfect harmony. I thought that would be a lot of fun to knit, and she so graciously shared the pattern here: http://fibermania.blogspot.com/2009/10/in-dyeing-mood-when-i-see-yarns-like.html .
Naturally, I don't have any sock yarn lying around, mainly because I don't knit socks, and I don't have any appropriate size 3 needles either  and so I had to consider how I would get the perfect yarn for this project, which probably is coolest if 2 alternating colorways are used. A trip to the yarn store was certainly in order.While there, none of the sock yarns enthralled me, but I got the idea to knit this in Blue Sky sport weight alpaca, of which I happen to have a bunch at home. I got another skein in white, a set of size 3 needles, and headed home after a lovely lunch with a friend who met me there to help fondle the yarn. On the way home, who could resist a church used clothing sale? I stopped in, and found the softest loveliest light blue Eileen Fisher sweater for $10! I had to buy it!So, pondering all of this wonderful wooly fun, it seemed a dyeing day was in order, so yesterday I got out my dyes, and searched the house for yarn to dye. I found a couple of skeins of sock yarn which were not blue enough, and some Blue Sky sport alpaca in a turquoise, which would do nicely to add variegation to the project. I mixed up a batch of brilliant blue acid dye, and a tiny bit of yellow, and dyed the white yarn green and blue, and overdyed all of the other yarn and the sweater with the blue dye. Here is a shot of the drying results:

So, now I have enough sock yarn and enough alpaca to play with, and a lovely mottled blue sweater, which is taking too long to dry! I am very happy with all of this blue! Isn't it amazing how many shades and types of blue there are? The lighter shades came to be as I dipped the yarn in the big pot at the end of the immersion process so the dye had nearly exhausted. It tends to strike pretty fast, and the pot I used was a bit small so the sweater dyed unevenly. Which is fine with me, actually, as I like a bit of shading and interest in that way. I'm looking forward to winding the yarn and playing around with it, and maybe even knitting the cowl that started this particular diversion! . It is sometimes difficult to read blogs, however, because my cat gets in the way:

Anyway, that is my plan...