What Happens When I Try to Declutter

Two years ago I started a sweater for Wool-Aid. Remember them? I haven't been knitting much for them. I think it was getting stuck on this project that kept me from doing anything else for them.

I'm using a pattern that's more like a recipe. You provide the measurements and it tells you how to get there with your gauge. I had a bunch of Lopi that my sister found at a second hand store and I figured out a way that I could use the different colours and have enough (I hope) for a sweater.

I liked the various colours (teal, plum, light purple) and I liked the tweed colour and thought it would be good for a stripe between the colours. But the "oatmeal" and "light brown" weren't going to contrast with the tweed enough.

So I tried to dye the light brown to a green with KoolAid. It was not pretty. It was mostly green, but the brown came through as an orange undertone and highlights. Really not pretty.

And the project sat for two years because continuing meant I had to figure out what to do about the dye and included the risk of ruining the yarn for this project.

In the meantime, I had purchased some Wilton icing dyes, something I had read a lot about from others who have dyed with KoolAid. Being an icing dye, it's still food safe and can be easily handled in my kitchen. But it also comes in many more colours and the liquid ones can be combined in many ways to make even more colours. It's also a little more complicated because you have to add acid separately to set it (unlike KoolAid which contains the acid).

So just recently, (probably when I was trying to clear up some clutter and found this project bag in a corner of my living room), I decided to give it another try. I took the horrible green and put it in the pot with a recipe for a deep brown. I took the "oatmeal" and put it in a pot with Wiltons Juniper Green.

Besides adding more green to the pot, I was very happy with the results. The colour was very even and deep. The tone is not perfect with the other colours but is within the acceptable range.

Here's the brown:

And the green:

And so I picked up my needles again and was able to continue the project.

It's a very thick wool being knit into a dense fabric, so not the best summer knitting, but I like to be warm so it's all ok. :)

I'm also happy to say that I kept good enough notes that I could decipher them and think I know the plan for this sweater.