The Color Your Mother Warned You About

The color red is dangerous. We all know this. That's why they make stoplights red: "Whoa! Hold on, there, pardner!" And stop signs: "This is a dangerous place; pay attention." And a gal in a red dress--we know she's out to get our man. (Not me, though. When I'm wearing red, it just means I'm a very nice person who happens to be wearing red today and that has no bearing on the fact that I wore a short red dress when I was playing a hot chica in a murder mystery. None whatsoever.) But the point I was trying to make before I ran off to tangent-ville is that red is trouble. And the trouble with fiber is, it bleeds. I know other colors bleed, too, but red is too often the culprit. So we wash our red fabrics before we put 'em into a quilt. We stabilize the color in embroidery floss as best we can. We even avoid it in our dishes because there's some kind of radioactive chemical in it that will turn us all into intelligent cockroaches or something, according to the Man of the Place. (Hmmm, maybe I wasn't really paying attention. Ya think?)

So I was a understandably concerned about this red cotton stria. I decided to knit up the sweater first and face that problem later, but before I attached the WHITE flower. So, here's what I did: I put it in a bath of cool water and Orvus Quilt Soap. Soaked it for a few minutes and, get this: the water didn't even turn light pink! Shock the monkey, was I surprised!

Then I attached the flower, the bobble buttons, and the stem for a big hooray!And here's the payoff:No,wait Sweetie, hold still for the camera:Good enough! That's about as still as a healthy sixteen-month old can get. She's so worth the knitting.