Knitting Dragonflies

I got some plain yarn, it is beige Lion Brand 100% wool, kind of boring. 24 oz of it. I want to knit this , from Knitty. Imagine by Karen Alfke who blogs here Abakini, better living thorough knitting. Notice that there is green and blue Kool Aid, in the background. Because, yes, I am officially obsessed with Kool Aid dyeing. I wound it off into 4 oz hanks. And then cooked up some lemon-lime Kool aid, I used 5 pkgs. per 4 oz of yarn. I decided to solar dye the yarn, since it is 93 here and sunny, and I found some sun tea jars on sale at Wal-Mart. I let it “cook” until the water was clear, then let cool until room temp and  rinse and drained it well. This took about 6-8 hours in full sun. Let cool and then rinse in cool water. Hang to dry.   Very green, but I wanted a little variation in color. I used blue Kool Aid, and used 2 pkgs. per 4 oz hank of yarn. I had a brain storm of applying it with a salt shaker. . Make sure you yarn is just barely damp, not setting in

If you haven’t heard about her, Sophie is a great little 4 year old that is inspiring many people to pick up their sticks and string and make a cozie (a cuddle blankie) to donate to her. She is collecting them to give to children at their local hospital. She has a group on Ravelry called Sophie’s Cozies (of course). Sophie knits herself and is adorable. Please go to Ravelry and read her story. I caught wind of her on Plurk, and donated the rest of my baby blankets from my Etsy shop. Woo Hoo….this little girl can inspire. She reminds us of what is important in life, and to take time to do it. She wants to deliver her first batch of cozies in September, so get out your needles and get going. May your knitting needles fly as fast as Dragonflies Technorati Tags: Sophie cozies , ravelry , donate , knit , knitted cozie , comfort blanket

While trying to destash, I ran across some nice yarn, but the color way was outdated, or I was tired of them….So…..why not try overdyeing? (I know I’m really suppose to be destashing and decluttering my house, and I end up making a bigger mess) Over dyeing begins…why not…can it look worse? Yuck. Blue/yellow/red before.   Before and after, this is with 5 packages of grape Kool Aid, and microwave dyed . It took the harshness away. My husband doesn’t see much difference, but he IS a man. Here we are all dry and ready to go, now I would knit something with this yarn. Inspired by my success, I decided to try more yarn. I found this blue/orange/burgundy/green color way. ugh… More yarn…and this time I tried solar dyeing, I found out that WalMart had their sun tea jars (glass) on sale for $1 each. I used this method . This yarn reminds me of the 70’s, and then some grape and  cherry kool aid (sorry I know it’s generic, but that’s half the price) Sun tea jars + yarn +