About five years ago, I finished my first olive green chenille 5 foot (stretched out eventually to about 7 foot) seed stitch scarf. Needless to say, I've learned some things in the meantime.
In addition to picking up some knitting tricks, I've become way better at
doing laundry. In the past, I would never hand launder anything, and rarely buy anything that required hand laundering. While still not a fan, I now have a much better idea of what tags that
say "hand wash only" mean it.
For instance, if a sweater is more than half acrylic, it probably will not shrink in the washer on cold. In fact, anything not 100% wool will probably come out fine if you stick it in a mesh zipper bag (to avoid weird sleeve stretching), on cold, and don't put it in the dryer.
A brief foray into fibers as well as felting (fulling, to be more exact) techniques will teach you what treasured sweaters will be unilaterally destroyed. It will also teach you to swear by superwash yarn when giving gifts that you don't want to see subsequently destroyed.
gift + complicated + superwash = not going to be accidentally destroyed
It's nearly knit. I just need to decide whether I want to seam it or add some buttons. Probably buttons, because cowl over head + dry winter weather = static city.
In anticipation for a stressed out pre-candidacy fall season, I've made some mid-year resolutions:
gift + complicated + superwash = not going to be accidentally destroyed
The green and yellow is tie-dyed with hair ties. Started with green and added the yellow. I think it could look really cool knit up. The pink and orange was dip-dyed using skewers; I like that the two colors are subtle so it won't be super dramatic. I love the lavender; it was mostly blue with one fruit punch. The brown was pretty much one of everything mixed together, and it looks like it. Ew.
