sweetgeorgia

The Perfect Red

Last April, we were visiting Japan and I felt the need to buy Noro in the “mother country”. The selection of Noro Cash Iroha at [Okadaya](http://www.okadaya.co.jp/hobby/index.html) near Shinjuku station was surprisingly limited — a lot of black and a bit of red. So, I bought the red.

This red was a warmish, rusty red that just wouldn’t wear well on me, so after I finished the sweater, I overdyed the whole thing. I wanted to shift the colour from warm to cool without darkening or muddying the existing colour. Solution? Overdye with just over 1% WashFast Magenta.

Since the yarn has a bit of silk content, I had to soak the sweater at least overnight… I was busy most evenings, so I ended up soaking it for three nights. Then the dyeing happened on Thursday evening with 4 g of dye powder (the sweater weighed 360 g, so this is just over 1% DOS), 36 g of citric acid (to make the dye strike) and 36 g of glaubers salt (to promote even dyeing). I agitated pretty much continuously for the first few minutes and then I’d come back and agitate the sweater lightly during each commercial break of The O.C. The sweater cooked for about an hour in total and I let the whole thing cool down overnight.

####Hourglass Sweater
* Pattern: From Joelle Hoverson’s “Last Minute Knitted Gifts”
* Size: I knit the smallest size (33″) but the sweater stretched on its own to about 36″
* Yarn: Noro Cash Iroha, 9 skeins (the ball in the photo is what I have left of the 9th skein)
* Needles: US 7 / 4.5 mm Addi Turbos
* Mods: I shortened the sleeves by about an inch (they were 17.5″ before joining to the body). Oh, and lazy me didn’t kitchener the sleeves and body under the arm. I did — of course — a three-needle bind off.
* Notes: Well, I think everyone who has made this sweater with Cash Iroha has made the same comments before — if in doubt, make a smaller size since the yarn will stretch out. Also, the neckline is very “Flashdance”. I had to string some additional yarn through the neckline in a lame attempt to maintain the neck shaping.

A couple months ago in Seattle, I came upon Cash Iroha in the exact same dyelot as I bought in Japan, so I purchased 2 additional skeins (for a total of 11 skeins) but ended up not needing them at all. I’ll probably use the remainder of the yarn for a little scarf or maybe a hat… and then overdye that too.

This sweater is super easy to make and so so so comfortable to wear. I think I might even make another one… with more mods of course.

The Red Phase

Shopping your own stash is a good thing. There are beautiful yarns that I bought and put in the stash for a reason… specific things I wanted to make but then forgot about. So picking through your stash, re-organizing, poking around… it gets you inspired to make those things again. Here’s what I picked up:

Plain and simple (if you pick up the errata on PURL’s site), I’m knitting the Hourglass Sweater from “Last Minute Knitted Gifts”. I bought the [Cash Iroha in Japan](http://blog.sweetgeorgiayarns.com/2005/04/japanese_stash/) for this very purpose. The time has come… for cashmere.

And for the [Harlot's Knitting Olympics](http://www.yarnharlot.ca/blog/olympics2006.html), I’ve picked…

This beautiful skein of [Zephyr](http://www.fiddlesticksknitting.com/ZephyrColours.html) was purchased at the [Salt Spring Island Fibre Festival](http://www.fibrefestival.com/) last summer. It’s about 1170 yards but the pattern specifies 1260 yards. I’m hoping I can knit this shawl without running out of yarn… because, well, that would suck.