Perserverence > Skill
Greetings, Gentle Readers! When last we checked in with Campbell’s sweater, it was still a big nondescript pile of undyed yarn. In the days since, I’ve been doing a fair bit of trial and error in the hopes of getting the color he requested. As a dyer, it turns out, I make an excellent knitter. Which is fine with me. I don’t expect to be good at everything I try - in fact I like to keep the bar low in some areas (I’m looking at you , kitchen) to lessen the pressure.
In fact, I’m a big advocate of sucking at some things, just so I look better at others.
So when my Boyo chose Aubergine for his Aran knit, I determined that anything in the general zip code of eggplant would be good enough, and screwed my courage to the sticking place. Congratulations to Lindsay M., by the way, for the closest guess to what color I’m planning! Drop me an email with your mailing addy so I can send out your prize. And as always, to everyone who played: thank you so much for jumping in with your guesses!
Here’s how the adventure went down: First I made a few test swatches in little jars in the microwave, just to see what would happen. I was really happy with the Aubergine (#475) color I ordered HERE, just as it came out of the pot. That simplified everything, because I could abandon thougts of blending and then scaling the “perfect” combination of red-violet and blue-violet with brown, etc. to get aubergine.
The center one is darker than the one on the right, if you’re wondering - turns out this is a tricky shade to photograph. I liked all of these, actually. I eliminated the darkest one, because knitting really dark colors in the winter, mostly at night, is no longer the rollicking good time for my eyes that it once was. I was sure I’d like anything close to one of the other two, though. Armed with some measuring tools and the force of my steely will, I leaned in to Operation Aubergine.
I had a lot of free-floating anxiety about getting all the skeins to match. So even though just about everything I read cautioned against it, I decided to dye all 4,185 yards in one go, in my washing machine. I cranked the hot water heater up, removed the agitator from my trusty top-loader and stood by with an electric kettle of boiling water, leaving nothing to chance. Yeah, that failed. As you cen see above, the color that happened was less eggplant and more Grimace.
I still considered myself on the right side of the Dyeing Gods though, because A. I hadn’t felted the yarn, and B. the gross color was very consistient across all 17 skeins.
So next stop: Dye Pot on the stove. Did I mention we’re having a blizzard? Sure would suck to lose power in the middle of this project, I realized in the middle of this project…
With better control and higher heat (DUH) I was able to exhaust all the dye into the yarn, where it belongs. I did it in four batches because this is my biggest pot. I recorded the time and temperature for each step and repeated each exactly, including the bonus round of using the snow to accellerate each cool-down.
I reported my progress to Campbell, who was also celebrating nature by being trapped at his place on the other side of the Columbia River from me.
Still wet, the yarn looked miles closer to what I was going for. The only question remaining was would it all match from batch to batch. Ruby both approved and reassured me as she supervised.
I still wasn’t able to see whether my batches looked the same until the following morning, when they were dry and we had daylight.
Atlas was a fan of the drying process, and of the color, too.
And here we are! I couldn’t be happier with this color. I could honestly eat it with a spoon.
On behalf of rank amateurs everywhere, I’d like to report that tenacity can sometimes make up for a lack of experience. As long as the standards for success are low.
Would I ever do this again? Well, I didn’t bore you with what happens when you overflow your washing machine with aubergine dye in the middle of a blizzard. No one who’s met me will be surprised THAT happened. I also won’t point out that I’ve now got two whole days invested here, between re-skeining and dyeing (twice) all 4000 + yards. So yeah, it’s already a labor of love. Cheap in terms of cash outlay (between gift cards and multiple coupons, etc. I have around $40 invested in the yarn). Expensive if measured in time and anxiety. But worth it? Hell yeah. What else was I gonna do with my bonus blizzard day off?