The Knitting Fiend

Shhh…. I can’t talk about this scarf until after I describe the activities that took place during a super secret meeting of “The Diabolical Knitters” which took place Oct. 17, 2006. This activity took place at a spot referred to as “my house.”

On that dreadful Saturday, demonic knitters invaded my neighborhood; they took over my empty garage, set up tables and cooking equipment and began to concoct special brews.

One knitter, who goes by the innocent sounding name “Kathy”, (who seemed to have specialized knowledge about these activities) was photographed measuring out colored powders; she mixed these powders with boiling water, stirred and then placed brew in various plastic or glass containers.¹ Each was labeled with mysterious code words like “Vermillion” or “Teal”. The knitters referred to these concoctions as “dye”.

While “Kathy” mixed these brews, other knitters were instructed to “soak their yarn”. Each knitter filled a bucket with water and a bit of Dawn dishwashing detergent, then dropped hanks of yarn in the bucket. The buckets were left undisturbed for about half an hour. I set a timer to help our busy coven know when the half hour was up.

While the yarn soaked, another knitter named “Mickey” arrived, carrying all sorts of equipment: A microwave oven, two crock-pots, things called kniddy-knoddies and “the contraption”.

Mickey instructed KitKat, Doree and Betty to begin winding hand spun yarn on “the contraption”. They obediently set to work and began creating the world’s longest hank of yarn. As they worked, the three cast a spell by repeatedly in-canting this words: “Is this really going to work?” The incantation was always followed by loud laughs.

Suddenly, the alarm I had set went off. Knitters all jumped up from their seats and dashed over to their buckets of yarn. “Kathy” then demonstrated the next step with her yarn.

First, she lifted her yarn from the bucket and gently squeezed out the water. She then placed the yarn on a piece of Saran-Wrap, she picked up a squirt bottle full of vinegar and squirted the yarn thoroughly with vinegar. After this, she grabbed a bottle of dye and began to squirt the yarn. The photographic evidence indicates she picked green and yellow. (Note: this “Kathy” was also wearing green and yellow. Does green and yellow have special significance for this Kathy? I don’t know.)

Kathy instructed the knitters to “really saturate” the yarn with dye, and make sure all bits got colored. Many gently squeezed to better distribute the yarn through the fiber.

After the colors were squirted on the yarn, with more vinegar was applied. Here, you can see another knitter selected two colors of red. (Does this have demonic significance? I don’t know.)

Next, the yarn was rolled up in the saran wrap and placed in a microwave container; the container was placed in a microwave and cooked for 1 minute. It was then turned, and cooked another minute. Then, the yarn was permitted to cool to garage temperature.

Meanwhile, off to the side, other knitters were busy dyeing other batches of yarn. One rebellious knitter left white spots in her yarn. Then, she placed her yarn in a cauldron which they called a “crock-pot”. The cauldron was filled with water (and possibly vinegar. I was sent on several errands to get water, food, soap, gloves, masks and other items. So, I missed this key step.)

The crock-pot was turned on, and the contents simmered an amount of time that seemed to approach “forever”, but was, less than an hour. (I think I heard the words “until it reaches 190 F” and/or “all the dye is absorbed” bandied about.) In any case, at some point, the yarn was fished out of the cauldron and allowed to cool.

When the yarns were cooled, each hand was rinsed in a bucket of fresh room temperature water. This washed off excess dye. I overheard lots of laughing and gleeful chuckling. If I am not mistaken, the most common incantations were “Ohhh… Pretty!”, “Oooohhhhh, I like mine!”, and “Wow! Yours is even better!”

At that point, the major “work” seemed to be complete. The knitters all began to dash in and out of the house, grabbing food and beverage.

I, however, became immensely curious and asked Mickey to show us what had become of the world’s longest skein of yarn. Here, you can see Mickey had dyed in a red-white and blue. Some regions are solid; others are speckled. This will evidently become a self striping sock. (Recent reports suggest the sock is now being created and the self striping nature is revealing itself.)

The other knitters continued to dye yarns, and/or eat and laugh. Eventually, all the yarns were dyed, and knitters began to jump up and clean up. Microwaves and crock-pots went into cars. Tables were put away. Paper, plastic and other equipment vanished. Damp yarns were placed in gallon sized ziplock bags. The knitters vanished.

I was left with two beautiful skeins of yarn!

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1. The Jacquard Acid Dyes were obtained from “Knit-Picks” where you can also download instructions various methods of dyeing yarns. I think Kathy followed the instructions for “flowable painting” which involves mixing boiling water and powder. The mask is highly recommended while mixing the powders. Many people who dye, recommend mixing these outdoors. The main reason is if you spill a small amount of powder in your kitchen you will need to go through about a billion sponges before you clean up all the color.