Urgent help for yarn pron required....

If you're reading this, you probably care about knitting. Please, take a minute to give me your ideas on how to fix the problem of kettle-dyed yarn which is bleeding fairly badly and losing colour. Please?
It's dyed using vinegar and fibre-reactive dyes, is the one in the picture below and needs to be in the post to the US by the end of next week. At the latest. Please, please, help????

Meet Samus

I can't believe it's finished- and blocked (badly) and just needs the zip applied. But, in truth, it is so. Thank Maude. I'm just hoping and praying that it fits my (absolutely minute) mother when she opens it on Christmas, because otherwise I'm going to cry.

Ideally, she'd like it as well. But as this is the woman who made me wear jumpers made from carpet wool as a child, and knitted me a stripy horse blanket not so many years ago, I'll live with the consequences if she doesn't. I know she'll appreciate the work and effort, even if she never wears it.

Oh, the sleeve does sit straight, I just accidentally bunched it up for the photograph.

Finished daisy cardigan

Knitted in parma violet DK alpaca merino from The Natural Dye Studio- unfortunately, it's not destined to live in our house. Instead, it's going on a long journey across the sea where it will be worn by another very lucky (and very warm) little girl. Isn't it beautiful? I just love the way that the stripes have balanced themselves out perfectly (which they have- I'm just absolutely crap at tying bows so it's not sitting straight on the coathanger. Given how random space-dyed yarn can be, I love, love, love, love, LOVE how the pattern has come out.

I have noticed the absence of daisies: I tried, and tried, but embroidery is just not one of my strong points. I can handle this , I really can. It's still a beautiful cardigan.

Demeter

I figure every good spinning wheel needs a name: and honestly, what better name for a wheel who lives in such a household as ours? She was rescued from a skip by the secretary of our local spinners guild, and came to live with me yesterday. Isn't she beautiful?

I have been knitting this week, honest. I have a cardigan for a trade that is blocking downstairs, and half a pair of the most beautifully masculine longies on the needles ready for Holiday Helpers. Pictures will follow- oh, and the neckband on Samus is finished. I just have to complete the applied i-cord round the arms, and then wash and block it.

Yarn pron!

I won an ebay auction for 500g of very cheap BFL aran, and it arrived yesterday (Saturday.) I love this stuff, I really do- I've been petting it and stroking it. And, of course, tipping large quantities of vinegar and dye over it to see what happens!


The end result is a kettle-dyed blue/green yarn, destined to be a pair of longies for the MDC holiday helper appeal. It's kind of sad to think that for the cost of these 200g, I wouldn't be able to get even one ball of Rowan or Jaeger or something like that.
The best thing? I checked on ebay tonight, and there's another 500g listed. This could get expensive.

The Skye at night

I love Bonfire night. I love the anarchy of it's history, I love the colours, the smells, the excitement, the opportunity to stay up late. I love it all.
This weekend, we've had lots of fireworks, and lots of bangs and oohs and ahs. Skye's new hat was finished on Friday night, just in time for me to make her wear it everywhere over the weekend (and I did. Oh yes, I truly did.) It's amazing- 27 people have told me how gorgeous it is over the last two days, and 26 of them told me how gorgeous my daughter was- NOBODY mistook her for a boy. Both the girl and the hat are very adorable though.
The socks are well underway- the short row heel is turned, the stripes jog less than Jordan in the run-up to a marathon, and they still feel fantastically soft. Back to Samus.

Knitting ADD

This is a very new and exciting experience for me, but I'm enjoying it. We went out to John Lewis at Cribbs Causeway today and I got some pretty new yarn to make Skye a winter hat. It's Soho, the replacement for Debbie Bliss maya and feels gorgeous- there was some lovely DK alpaca silk as well, but I resisted (desisted?) Samus is nearly there- one sleeve in, one sleeve on the needles, and I got a badful of goodies- leather and suede scraps and some gorgeous florals- from the local scrap store. Some of this will be a pointy kitty, some a pincushion, and the rest- who knows?
I've been working on a sock for Skye as well, striping pink RYC baby soft with the leftover fuschia alpaca from her cardigan. The sock is beautiful to feel, but ugly beyond belief to look at- the stripes are here, there and everywhere and the short-row heel looks more like fishnet stockings.So it will be frogged, and reknitted.