Purple!

I seem to be all about the knitting lately. It is a symptom of avoiding that messy room in the basement that I like to call my office. It is piled with disorganized boxes from out of town and local relatives who have sent things for me to wrap. Photos would be too scary.

While the Leaf Pullover for the Artist was winding down I began to think about what to do next. I'd like to make an every day, utilitarian sweater. I came across a near pound of navy blue wool and I thought that would be a good candidate for such a sweater.While I was buying the navy blue, I fell in love with this gorgeous brick and yellow wool.
I thought setting it against a navy blue background would make the colors really pop and so that is what I have decided to do.

Originally I thought I would make a fair isle yoke sweater, only instead of following all the colors in the fair isle chart, I would use only the brick and yellow variegated yarn as the only color filling in the shapes. Now I'm considering something else.

As I started the knitting with this navy yarn, I became aware of something strange, that I could not quite pin down. Stiffness? Maybe that is the best way to describe it.

I kept knitting, but my mind was not at all on the sit com on the TV, but on figuring out what was odd about this yarn. Then I hit upon the idea of caring for this finished garment. It would be a shame if that beautiful brick and yellow yarn should be sullied by dye bleeds from the navy yarn. Then, in that sudden moment of revelation, I knew the yarn was over saturated with dye.

What to do? The first sleeve was nearly knitted. I was almost through the first skein of yarn and ready to join the second one. So I picked up three new skeins from the knitting bag and began filling my sink with hot water. I used a wee bit of laundry powder and carefully dragged the skeins through the water so as to avoid roughing up the yarn.Wow! The water in my sink turned the most beautiful shade of purple. Not some delicate winsome purple either. Bold, royal purple. It was so pretty! And I was so glad I washed the yarn. This purple should stand alone or be paired with glittering gold, not brick and yellow! It was a little trickier to wash the sleeve still on the circular needles.

The brick and yellow is from the same maker as the navy, so I think I will have to pre-wash it as well. And to show this yarn at its best I think I will forget the fair isle and make the entire yoke in the variegated yarn. As a bonus, it will knit faster that way.