Sheep Shots

I just had to try the Patons VooDoo yarn. It's so funky on the ball that I figured, what the heck.

It's a cabled rope with chunks of fuzzy stuff every so often.



I had seen a bit of it knit up into hats (on-line--Google is my friend) so that's what I decided I'd make.



The ball band calls for size 13 US needles (9 mm for the metrics among us). I thought, "no freakin' way!" and cast on my "hat" on 11s.

This stuff is very strange and knits up even stranger! That's the wrong side over there on the left. Most of the fluff migrates to the inside (as you'd expect).






But not all of it does, so you get these hairy spots on the right side with sort of bald patches in between. Like mange, kind of.

So, the question of the week: Can the creature that bears the fiber we refer to as "ack" support the parasite commonly known as mange?

All conventional wisdom aside, the picture (left) would offer proof positive that the answer is undeniably, "yes."

Repeat after me: It will keep someone warm.

And I have spent the better part of the last several hours hanking and dyeing.

I used Wilton paste color and Kool-Aid. I was hoping for some "neutrals" this time around and so used purple (the Wilton, plus grape KA) over the amber which should have given me a sort of "mud" color. (Remember mixing water colors as a kid?)

Well, that didn't work out quite like I expected. I got a sort of chestnutty color with the Wilton and a warm taupe with the KA. Interesting and certainly useable, just unexpected.

Here, take a look:

The ones going horizontal at the top are three of the ones you've already seen.

Top to bottom: Cherry, lime, and the blue Wilton that gave me such fits rinsing out the excess.

Across the bottom, vertical and l-r (as best as I can remember- Must Write It Down Next Time) :

Black cherry berry blast, Wilton violet, black cherry, grape, Wilton royal blue, raspberry blue lemonade, orange (the same hank as before, overdyed a second time with the same color) and cherry.

Remember that all of these were overdyes. The base yarn is a warm gold without greenish tones. They are also still damp to wet, so I expect the colors to lighten a little.

I'm hoping to cast on something cute very soon. Most of these hanks are 300-400 yards. Probably enough for a baby sweater, or combining a couple of colors, a sweater for a small child.

I have some gray and some black Brown Sheep Naturespun that will set the colors off very well. And there's still about a pound of the amber still undyed.

Dulaan, here we come!