Tea Leaves Can Be Bitter

Looks great up here!

So I have finally recovered enough from the Tea Leaves Cardigan debacle to write about it.

Not to rip out the bottom and fix it…just to write about it.

I bought the yarn for this beauty at fibre space, where I was helped by the lovely staff, and reminded that I should alternate rows with two different skeins in order to avoid obvious color problems due to differences between skeins.  [Hand-dyed yarn varies from skein to skein.  I know this.  I have known this for quite some time. Check out Kay’s nifty post on hand-dyes yarns for more info.]  As I told you all last time…I said, blithely, “Oh, I know.  I probably won’t do it, though.”

Hubris, people.  Hubris is what brought down ancient heroes like Achilles and Odysseus — foolish mortals who thought themselves so great that they could risk the gods’ displeasure. [Am I suggesting that I am a knitting heroine? No, but I am certainly a knitting fool, a knitting mortal.] Hubris has brought down much better knitters than I.  I am well aware of the dangers of taunting the gods. And yet — such is the power of hubris at times — I not only defied known knitting wisdom; I announced my intentions. Just as Odysseus blinded Poseidon’s son, then told the guy his name so he’d know who defeated him, thus bringing Poseidon’s rage onto himself and dooming his men…but I digress.

...not so good down here.

Result?

Bottom six inches are much paler than the rest.

I have a few excuses: I was knitting in low light (true at times); I was knitting with the iPad in front of me (also true at times); I was knitting to finish instead of knitting to knit (perhaps true); I was told that knitting with the lighter skein would save the life of a small, golden-haired child…

Several folks in one of my beginner classes were so comforting.  They told me I could consider it a design feature!  They told me it almost looked intentional!  They told me that just finishing a sweater was an accomplishment (awww).  How I love my knitting students.  How I love knitters in general!  Lesley even joined in my rationalization that the only thing that would save it was buying more yarn.

Sadly, after all the rationalizing and looking-with-squinted-eyes, the fact remains: It’s obvious.  Obvious to me, obvious to others.  It’s ridiculous.  I can do better.  So it will be fixed.  I have decreed it; I have committed to you all that I will fix it.  Next up will be photos of the frogged body of this sweater.  I’m not happy about it…but I will do it.

The solution, in case any of you have been wondering, is for me to rip out the bottom of the sweater, up to at least the base of the sleeves, and re-knit it, alternating rows between the lighter and darker skeins.  If that makes that one sleeve look too dark, I may have to do the same with it.  If that doesn’t work, I may have to re-knit the whole thing.  But we are not thinking about that right now.

Hmph.