A dear friend (thanks Ellen!) gave me 4 four ounce lengths of
handpainted wool roving in similar but not identical colourways. Two
are oranges and reds with browns and two are blues with browns.
Sounds like it would be impossibly loud or clashing but laid side by
side, they make a happy and harmonious looking group. The label said
"fine like Merino" and from the way it felt as spinning, I'd guess
it is Targhee.
One of the four ounce lengths rubbed off significant amounts of blue
dye on my fingers and spindle as I spun it--none of the others did.
At the time I thought "how curious, maybe this length didn't get
rinsed after dyeing or was heavily overdyed or something."
Well, I've got the whole sixteen ounces spun and plans for a rather
dramatically striped shawl. I washed the skeins and three of the
skeins washed up normally. The fourth one (one of the blues with
browns) bled heavily into the wash water. And into the rinse water.
I've just done my fourth wash on it and noticed with alarm that the
blue portions of that skein are now looking definitely greyed. Now
I'm worried that it didn't strike for some reason. The brown areas
don't seem affected, they seem to be the same, it's just the blue,
so I don't think it could possibly have been greasy wool (and it
didn't feel greasy at all when spun--I would have noticed because I
really don't like the feeling).
Is there any way I can fix this? Simmer in water with vinegar,
maybe? The skein is blue with browns and I'm not sure what would
happen if I overdyed it with blue. Would it significantly shift the
browns (the browns are the colour that unite the four colourways)?
I work in a rather chilly environment as a dog trainer and I wanted
a warm wrap. So I spun the roving fairly heavily and Navaho-plyed to
keep clear groups of colours (with some barberpoling--I wasn't
obsessive about the size of my loops). Turned out somewhere between
fingering and sportweight. I planned to start at the top/middle and
just keep on knitting until I was out of yarn and figured that I'd
use most of the yarn to make a shawl that would cover my arms down
to my wrists. I even had a good idea to get a little shaping around
the neck to help it stay in place around my neck without disrupting
the pretty miter in the center back!
Without this skein of blues and browns, I don't think I'll have
enough for such a shawl. I guess I could make a stole but... but...
I had my heart set on my sorta triangular shawl.
The other skeins washed up beautifully, the yarn bloomed and it's
exactly the way I imagined it. But this greyed-out blue skein will
definitely not fit right.
Sigh. Sorry about the whining--I'm definitely in the OH NO! phase.
Shirley
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