Monday, April 16, 2012

White is the New Pink

I decided to try the "Kill Me" shawl again, working word for word with the pattern.  It was still difficult, and I really think there's an error in the pattern.  I think I will try writing it out more clearly, for others.  I have to find out first if I did the decreases right.
First decision though, was what yarn to use.  The original was from a huge cone I have, but the shawl used only 88gr.  So I picked a 100gr hank of yarn that is extremely similar, but from Grand River Yarns.  I can't find the same yarn there (or on Ravelry) but I did find one that seemed very similar called "Iris", while mine is called "Isis".  If you take a look at this post and scroll down, you can see a picture with the yarn.  It's the pinkish one on the left, with bits of black-blue.  Or, look at this post, and scroll down.  Sometimes when you dye with black, it will "break" and you'll see the individual colours that make it.  That's what it seems like with this yarn.

I knit the shawl, weighing the yarn when I got to a "critical point" in the pattern, and found that I wasn't going to have enough to make it the full size!  Altered the pattern and finished off.  Took it upstairs for a bath, since this yarn has been floating around since fall 2007.  Cool water and some Soak, and look what I found!
 Buh Bye pink dye!  So glad I wasn't washing any other items at the same time!
 Right out of the bath, it still had lots of pale blue/turquoise splotches, and a pink tint over all.
 As it dried, it seemed to get lighter, though it is definately not white.  The splotches also seemed to disappear!
There are a few splotches left, but they sort of look odd now.  I'll admit, I wasn't overly thrilled with the yarn to begin with.  It was a free skein from a "buy 4 get one free" and she didn't have any more of the 4 that I chose, that I really liked (except for the one that my friend picked, but since she drove, I let her have it, LOL).  I had never thought about over dying it, but I think I might do that now!  The yarn is rayon, which means I have to dig out my Procion MX dyes.  I don't have much of them, so my colour choices are probably going to limited to blues/turquoises which I had bought to dye a cone of rayon from Camilla Valley Farms.  We'll see.  Not sure when I'll get to it, as I also have to get out the instructions, etc...and there are other, more pressing projects.  But, this means I can't add the 100gr to my yarn used yet!

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