Blue spaghetti

Here's what I'm doing today, in between other things:

It's 2400 yards of absolutely wonderful laceweight alpaca that I got from Lisa Souza a few days ago. There is no doubt that she would be horrified to see what I am doing to it. :) But, I wanted to try dyeing it a blue/green oceany kind of color. I was inspired by Sarah's dye job on the yarn she's making the Legends of the Shetland Seas shawl from. Using very precise scientific measurements (stop rolling your eyes! I thought about measuring, before I didn't...), I threw it in my dye pot with some water, and sprinkled Gaywool dye crystals in "Musk" and "Cedar" across the top, Musk on the left, Cedar on the right. I poked it with a dye spoon a little, and set it to cook. It's pretty scary in the picture above, because I *might* have been just a little heavy-handed with the sprinkling, and it looked pretty dark at first. To the point that the color name was leaning to something like "Frightening", rather than "Pretty Ocean Color". But now it's been simmering for a while and it looks a little better. I am shooting for a very unevenly-dyed yarn that varies from a darkish green to a teal blue, very dark in some places, a lot lighter in other. We'll see what happens.

I am not entirely sure what I plan to knit with it. Well, lace, of course. But exactly what lace, I don't know. I'd kind of like to do a Faroese shawl, but I haven't really looked at any patterns, though I do remember thinking Myrna Stahman's designs looked beautiful. I'd actually like to design my own, but before I design a Faroese shawl, I'd like to knit one of somebody else's design first, to get a better feel for it. There is, however, a very good explanation here for anyone thinking about designing a Faroese shawl.

And, it will be a long time before I knit anything with this yarn, anyway; I have the Snowdrift Stole and my aran sweater to complete. Then a couple handfuls of small partially-done projects. Then Osterdalen, a Dale of Norway sweater that I started in December. Finally, a Vivian Hoxbro kit that I did the gauge swatch for a long time ago. It's the Rainbow Jacket, and I love it and I want to knit it. I might be able to work on an oceany-colored Faroese shawl while I finish the Dale and the Rainbow Jacket. Fun, fun, fun, eh? heh heh.

Osterdalen (Dale of Norway):	Rainbow Jacket (Vivian Hoxbro):

Comments

[Sarah Otley]

Hi Beth, I think your yarn will turn out great. If its dark you can call it storm at sea. Sarah