Inspired!

From Design*Sponge.

Between favorite blogs, Martha Stewart craft-a-day, magazines and my own wacky mind, I have started to fill my brain with wedding/life ideas. This resulted in some crafty alchemy yesterday. I'd found and flagged this idea in the early throes of wedding planning. The color, the flowers and the basketweave stitch didn't really sing to me, but the idea of a vase cozie seemed workable. The idea had sort of slipped away until I saw the below:

From the lovely, indelible Martha Stewart.

Hello, Martha, I want this. Now, I'm the first to admit that Martha's craft of the day is normally insane or complicated, but I love this. I'm kind of picturing do invites, or thank yous in a butcher paper color dipped in burgundy (actually I have the sudden urge to dip-dye everything I own).

But wait, these two pieces of inspiration have nothing in common- yet.

See, my brain wanted to combine both ideas. Immediately. So fast that I only have a couple of pictures, clearly taken after the fact.

I started with some Lion Fisherman Wool. Have I told you how much I love this? It is cheap ($4-5 with 40% off coupon at Jo-ann's) and there's enough yardage to play around with without feeling badly. This was the "Oatmeal" color, which worked because I've been on a taupe kick this week.

I knitted a swatch (hello!) but didn't block it, so no real help. But basically, I knit a plain stockinette rectangle. I knit the first and last row through the back loop (k tbl), because I used a loose cast on; the end effect gave a little twist at the bottom that I liked. From here, I knit a bigger stockinette rectangle to fit around a plastic jar that was lying around. Then I seamed it, because it seemed faster than knitting the whole thing on double pointed needles.

On to dyeing!! Also no pictures. But I was shooting for an ombre effect. I used part of one grape Kool-Aid pack in a drinking glass. I kind of roll-smushed the knitted tube into the cup for the microwaving - but guess what, a cup full of water heats up really quickly. It only took about 3 zaps of 30 seconds to get pretty darn hot! So I just left it on the counter to cool and soak up color. I added a little more color and water to get a little color higher up. I'm sort of worried this just made an ugly stripe, but we'll see.

Anyway (thanks for bearing with me) when the color seemed good, I wrung it out a bit and fitted it back over the vase. Remember how I didn't block the swatch? Well the vase cozie obviously stretched while it was wet, so was then a loose fit. My solution? As you see, I wrapped a towel around it and taped it shut. Literally. Eek!

I promise more pictures once it's dry. But for now you'll have to be satisfied with a tiny peak of burgundy.