A Blue State of Mind

Last summer when I started dyeing yarn, I began with handpainting. The first skein I worked on turned out nice, but, as is the wont of first tries, not quite what I had envisioned. It was uneven, a bit blotchy, and, at the transitions between colors, embarrassingly pale. It needed a makeover.

I'd planned to do another round of handpainting, but that was before I dyed the roving for felt balls using the much simpler immersion method. What would happen, I began to wonder, if I just threw it into a pot with some blue dye?

So last week during the unseasonably warm and bright weather (come back, sun! we miss you!), that's what I did.

I chose blue in the spirit of the season, and also out of basic color sense: the original colors were blue, purple and green. I measured the dye liberally (pun intended), wondering what magic I was making. Would the blue overwhelm the other colors, giving me a lovely but rather plain blue skein, or would I get indigo, turquoise, royal, periwinkle, Atlantic, cerulean, midnight, lake, cornflower, lapis, and a score of other shades whose names I've forgotten, if they ever existed?

The latter, as it turns out. I am in love with it. (Grant doesn't know.) I want to keep it around forever, just to look at, and I want to turn it into a splendid pair of socks. I'm caught in the eternal dilemma: I can't have my yarn and knit it too.