Mohair Nightmare

I wish I liked mohair. I know everyone says how lovely it is, soft with a lovely sheen but my skin just hates it! Trying to wear anything containing mohair is like wearing an amazingly attractive barb wire accessory! And that's even after I spun it! Doesn't matter what I do I still feel all these little fibres sticking into me. Which makes this shawl I've just finished the heights of futile endeavour!
I bought 4 of these balls of Moda Vera Boutique. Loved the colour gradients and the pattern I wanted to try worked best if, of the two yarns you use, one of them has some form of gradiation. So this seemed a good choice.

So I paired it with a recycled lambswool which is beautifully soft and cast on. I began to have misgivings when I realized that I could feel the mohair more than the lambswool. And then I thought, this is a shawl. Where will this spend most of it's time? Around my neck and shoulders!
Am I INSANE!!!
So I decided that once I finished the ball I would finish it since it didn't make sense to keep on with something I'm probably never going to wear and which I couldn't in good conscious pass on to someone else unless they can touch it and make sure they don't have the same problem with mohair.

It's such a shame because it looks lovely and the pattern was really good too. I still have plans for doing the pattern again but in yarn I know is nice (The skeins I dyed and nearly felted are going towards that.) Still going to keep the shawl though. Just as an object lesson. No matter how pretty the colour if it feels nasty you are never going to be able to knit something that is not. Just proves the old saying is true.
You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
Lesson learned!
Happy Knitting :)

Sometime it pays to think before you do something!

Finally dyed all the base yarn I wanted and the house REEKS of vinegar. So, in a fit of amazing obtuseness I put it all into two delicates bags, toss it in the washing machine, added eucalytus wool wash and fabric softener and...
PUT IT ON A NORMAL WASH CYCLE!!!
What was I thinking???
...And here's the result :(

Bugger!
But all is not lost! I figured out that it hadn't destroyed it so much as felted the fibres together so if I put each hank back onto my Swift I could wind them back onto my NiddyNoddy and reskein them up again.
So, after a big, deep, cleansing sigh...that's what I did.

It seemed to take FOREVER!
But now I have a lovely selection of colours where before I had this boring kind of blue/lavender thing. Definitely think I'll try a shawl with this. Probably the pattern I'm doing at the moment in the mohair and lambswool.
I hate mohair! It's itchy!!
This stuff, on the other hand, isn't. It's soft and cosy and I chose the colours all myself!

I've also cleaned out Walpoles IGA of all it's white vinegar and my fingers are slowly losing that green tinge. I'm all out of the dylon powder so that's probably just as well although I'm practising with food dyes and vinegar now. I think I've created a monster :)

But at least it's a fun, pretty coloured monster! Got to get back to knitting though.
Happy Knitting :)