Tag Archives: color

A Roll of the Dice

1 Reply

I started working on the second sleeve, and, well, I almost immediately ran out of yarn. I had managed to delude myself into thinking that I had enough yarn to make it through the sleeve. But, no matter how much I wanted it to be true, I had barely made it through the cuff when I was left with this much yarn:

So, I ran back to Webs and ordered another skein. I was excited when the package showed up yesterday, but then I suddenly realized- I had no idea if it was going to match. The color on the website vs. the actual color was so wildly different, it suddenly occurred to me that the new and old yarn might not match at all.

I crossed my fingers, held my breath, and opened the package.

And thank all the Knitting Gods! Not only did the color match- the new yarn was actually the same dye lot as the stuff I ordered months ago. I certainly lucked out!

Now all I have to do is… finish the sweater!

Did you ever luck out (or not) with a dye lot?

True Colors

2 Replies

So you guys remember when I finally bought some yarn a few weeks ago? Well, it came.

To refresh your memory, I’ve decided to finally buy myself some new yarn for the first time in… years. I’ve been just stashbusting left and right since the pandemic began, and to be honest, my stash was never that impressive to begin with. Needless to say, I’ve been feeling less than inspired by my knitting of late.

Anyway, I ordered 3 skeins of Berroco Vintage (a favorite of mine for soft, cozy, easy-ish care garments) in the colorway Okra. A cute, fresh green that I thought would look good on my red-headed 2-year-old. Here it is:

Well, you can imagine how excited I was when I saw the package in the mail- new yarn for a new project that I’m actually excited about? What could go wrong?

Well, look at it:

It’s fully a different color! And this isn’t a case of “Allison doesn’t know how to take pictures!” It’s truly this gray-green sage color, not the cute, chipper Okra color I thought I was ordering. (And, yes, I’ve checked the label- they didn’t send me the wrong color by mistake.)

I guess this is just a great reminder of two things:

  1. Dyelots matter- a lot. There’s a ton of variation in colors, even with a big industrial dyer like Berroco.
  2. Buying yarn online is always a bit of a crap shoot.

Is this the color I picked out? No. Was I bummed when I opened the package? A little bit. Am I still going to use this yarn to make an adorable sweater for my kid? Absolutely.

What’s the wildest color mismatch you’ve come across?

Christm-ish

1 Reply

So, I went back and forth for a while about what color to get to finish off the kid’s sweater. And, while I was leaning toward the nice light green, or a neutral oatmeal/gray, they were adamant that they wanted RED.

I managed to talk them down from RED red, to this nice shade of “Black Cherry.” Not necessarily what I would have picked, but, hey, it’s not my sweater.

It took a while for the yarn to show up, so I haven’t gotten far, but I’ll be honest, I like it more than I thought I would. I figured the red + green would look so Christmassy, that I wouldn’t like it, but I’ve surprised myself that I don’t hate it.

(Would I have preferred not running out of green yarn to begin with? Yes. Would I have picked another color if it had been up to me? Yes. But, such is life with a preschooler.)

What new color combinations have you tried recently?

OK. New Plan.

4 Replies

I’ve finally got my act together.   I’ve sulked long enough, and I think I figured out a solution.  I think I can make this sweater work.  I’ll live to knit another day.

But first, I had to rip an entire sleeve.  It was… an unfortunate amount of ripping.   I poured myself a nice stiff drink and went to town.

God… look how different that yarn is.  (New yarn is on the right, old, scraggly yarn is on the left.)OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI remembered someone telling me, or maybe reading somewhere (not sure where… I just know I didn’t make this up), that if you had two different dye lots that you had to make work, you can work them in stripes to blend the two colors together.  It was worth a shot.

First I tried 2-row stripes, but that ended up looking really stripey.  (I didn’t even bother taking a picture of this one- it didn’t look good.)

But, when I tried narrow, 1-row stripes, I managed to get a pretty even color.  And, since I’m using a big circular needle, I can slide the needle back and forth after every other row.  That means I don’t have to break my yarn or juggle extra balls of yarn!  Winning!OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASee?  The sleeve (the bottom portion of the picture) is pretty close to the rest of the sweater.  It’s still a smidge blue-ish in real life, but only so much that someone looking really closely would notice it.

The only problem is that the combination of new yarn and old, frogged yarn makes the fabric a bit of a mess.OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERABut at this point, I’m just going to cross my fingers and hope that it looks OK after blocking.

Have you ever had to get creative to get around poor dye-lot matching?

Heartbreak

11 Replies

I’m completely heartbroken.  My hopes have been dashed.  My best plans of a simple, fun, and easy sweater are completely falling apart.

My yarn came in the mail.  (Actually it came in the mail a few weeks ago, but I was so disappointed, I threw it into the closet and pretended it hadn’t showed up yet.)  Usually new yarn is a source of joy, but ugh…

Look:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAOK, it’s kind of hard to see in a photo, but take a closer look:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThe ball of yarn on the left is the new yarn- it’s significantly more blue-gray.  And the half-finished sweater is on the right- it’s a lovely pink-y lavender.

I know they look pretty similar in these photos (it’s been established my photography skills are lacking), but in real life, they’re significantly different.  Even my husband commented.  I’ve got the whole sweater finished with the old yarn, except for the left sleeve.  I can’t have a sweater with one different color arm!

This, boys and girls, is why you buy all your yarn at once.

Now I’m going to go drink a lot of coffee and come up with a plan.

Funfetti-Projects!

4 Replies

It’s taken months to finish spinning my Funfetti yarn. Now it will take me months to find the perfect pattern.

Part of the problem is that the yarn has fairly long runs of color- not long enough to be considered self-striping, but not short enough to be considered variegated.  I have to be careful with the pattern I pick, or the colors might start to pool weirdly.

For example, if I pick a shawl or scarf that’s knit longways, the colors will be all spread out and more muddled toghether:

HorizontalLots of shawls are knit this way, like The Age of Brass and Steam Kerchief by Orange Flower Yarn.

20_00-_leagues_shawl_2_small_best_fit[1]Or, if I knit it shortways, the colors might pool against themselves, making a kind-of-striped look:

VerticalScarves tend to be knit this way, like Baktus Scarf by Strikkelise.

DSCN3515_small[1]Or, of course I could pick a shawl that is knit both longways and shortways, like the French Cancan by Mademoiselle C.  (The body of this shawl is knit longways, while the edging is knit shortways.)

DSC_8833_small_best_fit[1]But, if I’m being honest, my Funfetti Yarn will probably just sit on my shelf, being pretty for a good year or so.  But it’s a fun thing to think about!

What would you make with my Funfetti Yarn?

Design Series: Color!

2 Replies

I know, I know, I know.  This sock-design project is taking longer than maybe you (and certainly I) expected.  But, honestly, these are all the questions I have to ask myself while designing any pattern.  I’ve just never put my thought process into words before.  It’s a bit of work at the beginning, but it’s worth it to get started the right way.

Last week, we talked about the technical theme of the socks.  And, it looks like “Simple socks” won by a hair!

IMG_2698_medium2[1]We’ll be making super cozy socks in a simple pattern with two or three colors. (Maybe we could even make them at a big, cozy gauge!  That would be fun!)

So, the next question of course is:  What color are our socks going to be?

Actually, what colors are our socks going to be?

Lets first pick a main color:Maincolors

And then we can pick an accent color:Accentcolors

Vote, Vote, Vote!  Or, if there’s a color I didn’t include, let me know and I can add it in!

Inspiration: Aurora Borealis

2 Replies

Supposedly, there’s a big solar flare happening right now.  And, supposedly, that means that we will be able to see the Northern Lights tonight.  It seems that somehow a solar flare leads to the Northern Lights showing up.  How that happens, as a non-astronomy-inclined person, is a big mystery to me.  (My husband has tried to explain it to me… I can’t make heads or tails of it.)

016[1]I’ve heard before that we were supposed to see the northern lights from the PNW, but I’ve still never seen them.  Maybe they show up after I go to bed.  Maybe you have to go out of town to see them.  Maybe the Aurora Borealis is actually a myth, like unicorns, wizards, or the Loch Ness Monster.

aurora-borealis-wallpaper[1]I read one article that said that you’ll see them better if you use your camera to take a long-exposure photo of the sky.  That just sounds like ghost-hunter-type behavior, to me.  “I swear, if you just point your camera over here for a few minutes, you’re bound to pick up something.  So what if you can’t see it now?”

aurora-borealis-northern-lights_1280x1024_159-standard[1]I might be a little pessimistic about my chances of actually seeing the Aurora Borealis tonight, but that doesn’t mean I won’t look for it, and it certainly doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s beautiful.

In fact, I think I’ll celebrate the Northern Lights by looking at some beautiful projects, filled with luminous, shifting colors, just like (hopefully) the sky tonight.

Revontuli -huivi/Northern Lights by AnneM

1503583993_9aa8397e28_z[1]knit/lab Colorwork Crescent by Kieran FoleyColourwork_mystery-7_medium2[1]

Paintbox Log Cabin Blanket by Katherine Keyes1532025337_64dd0cea32_z[1]