Big League Chew is Gross (a dyeing project)

We've all been there: the big yarn purchase that you later regret, because the color is crazy, or the texture is weird, but in the moment you think, for example, this is awesome, this pepto-pink, lavender, grape-purple variegated lace yarn.

Seriously?

I'm having strong doubts about strongly-variegated lace yarn in general, because it seems to detract from the lace work. But this knitpicks gossamer, colorway "sweet peas," is the most vomitous colorway I've ever worked with.

It looks like that gum from my childhood, that came in "pink" and "purple" flavors--dump two pouches of Big League Chew on the table, swirl it all together and you get...this horrible yarn.

Something had to be done.

So I snipped the working yarn of my Zimmerman pi shawl; I unscrewed the needle tips and put on the caps of my knitpicks options needles; I wound all of the unknitted yarn of this colorway onto my swift to make two long hanks. I dropped the half-knitted shawl and the two hanks in the dyepot with a bunch of raspberry blue Koolaid and cyan food coloring.

It came out great. Thank god.

I'm still not sure about the variegation with the pi shawl though, because the ever-increasing diameter causes the colors to pool in not-so-awesome ways. I might end up dyeing the final product a darker color. But the other 1500 yards I have of this colorway look great, and will make a good rectangular shawl or baby clothes.

On Ugly Sweaters

Jordynn and I are talking over knitting at the moment and we have come to a conundrum.

Let me approach the conundrum via simile.

You know how your friend with the ugly kids thinks her kids are just gorgeous, simply because they are her kids? As though her act of creation has blinded her to the irrefutable fact that her kids are ugly?

I'm having a funny feeling that the sweaters I knit are actually ugly, and that I would never wear them if I didn't knit them. Then, I start getting this horrible feeling that I'm walking around in ugly sweaters and that I can't tell that they are ugly.

I usually have fabulous fashion sense. I can look at a fashion trend that blinds other people because of its trendiness and simply say, "Wow, is that ugly."

E.g. Uggs boots with mini-skirts or on anyone that isn't an Australian surfer; wool short-shorts with tights in winter, especially the kind with the stupid buttons on the front like a Bavarian child would wear and make you ask "what's with the lederhosen"?; the resurgences of leggings a la Lindsay Lohan.

Wow. Hideous.

But then, what's with me presuming that my hand-knits are cool just because they're my handknits? That's just a logical fallacy. Hand-knit does not yield coolness.

In fact, most often it's just the opposite.

What else would explain this?