On to Blocking

I finished knitting Banff last night. I did rip out sleeve #1 back to the straight knitting and took out the same 6 rows. They now measure perfectly! Tonight I plan on blocking the front and both sleeves so I can finish it this weekend and wear it next week if the weather cooperates.

I'm wearing Dolman today - I finished it late in the season last year, so I don't remember wearing it much. It's nice to have it back out.

This weekend I also plan on using the 1.75 liters of Vodka I got last week. I got some yarn from Webs last year on cones. It is a beautiful cornflowery blue, just right for the big Tahki cabled sweater I want to make. Since the sweater required so much yarn, this was a good deal. I wound it from the cones into skeins to verify how much yardage I had. I noticed a faint musty smell to the yarn. I figured it was from being in the Webs warehouse. I set the skeins outside for a few days to air out. No luck. I tried Febreeze - no luck. I tried Euclan - no luck. I was dreading the fact that I now had 1600 yards of smelly yarn that I couldn't use! So, I let it sit for the summer not wanting to think about or knit a huge wool thing. I pulled it out a week or so ago getting my list of fall knits ready. Once again, I was faced with the faint musty odor. I posted a question on the forum as I always get great responses, and usually a solution to my problems there. As the knitting gods would have it, I got a bunch of suggestions.

Putting the yarn in a ziplock and then in the freezer for a few days sounded strange, but easy enough, so I did that. Less of a smell, but it was still there.

Another suggestion was putting the yarn in a black trash bag and putting it in the sun to bake out the moldy smell. Made sense, but being November, the sun isn't very warm, I nixed that idea (but will keep it in mind for when weather is warmer).

The strangest was using Vodka. Posters said that the entertainment industry uses Vodka in spray bottles to freshen up costumes that can't be washed. One poster even said she used it on her hockey jersey. I figured, if it can work on a hockey jersey, yarn should be no problem!

I poured it into a spray bottle (we had about 1/2 bottle of some older cheap stuff laying around) and sprayed the skein. I wasn't sure if I needed to drench it, or just spray it, so I drenched pretty well. I let it air dry and low and behold - NO SMELL!!!!!!! I was so happy!!! I think a bath in Eucalan will also do it some good after the vodka.

On to the next 18 skeins!