Honey, Because the World's Gone Wrong

This weekend I had a strong urge to start a new knitting project, one that I’ve had my eye on for awhile. A couple of friends have had baby girls in the last couple of months, and the Little Sister’s Dress is a simple but very cute garment. This is one of the projects I thought about taking on my trip, but I opted for the (now ripped out) lace project instead. I fished around in my stash on Friday (or maybe Thursday or Saturday—I’m still a little messed up from the vacation and holiday days) and came up with a skein of Jitterbug in the Copper Beach colorway that I’ve had for awhile. Most importantly, it was already wound into a ball, so I could start immediately. I thought it was perfect—shades of brown with a little blue and red. Brown is a great fall color for a Pacific Northwest baby, and think how cute it would look with red leggings & turtleneck?

In the dim light of the living room (supplemented by the glow of a ton of Tivo’d shows that I had to catch up on), I made really good progress after a couple of minor counting/pattern following issues. I took it outside into the real, natural-light world last night, and it is ugly. Really, really ugly, with its ugliness confirmed by three other knitters. I don’t think that the photo above captures the ugliness adequately—some might even think that it looks fine. The problem is that there’s a lot of yellow in the yarn, which looks at first like it’s just a lighter brown. Blech.

This was definitely a can’t-see-the-forest-for-the-trees situation—I was so focused on the pattern and shaping (which I screwed up early on) that I didn’t pull back and see the whole garment. Usually, choosing color is one of my stronger qualities, because my former roommate E____ is a graphic designer and it was easy to just lift her favorite palette and apply it to my own projects. I bet that E____ would have noticed the yellow, though.

I really don’t even want to finish this now, because I certainly can’t give a poor, innocent baby such an ugly thing, and I can’t think of any 6 month olds against whom I am holding a grudge. I’m not interested in over dying it, if that’s even possible, because that’s a slippery slope towards dying more yarn/garments, and I would really rather focus on the hobbies I already have. If anyone would like to take this yarn (ripped out or in its current form), please leave a comment and I will send it to you, no questions asked. Maybe it would look better as socks, or maybe YOU want to over-dye it. Seriously, take it--you’d be doing me a favor. If more than one person want it (which would surprise me), I’ll randomly generate a number.

I’m starting another one any day now, because it’s the cutest pattern, but in a better color. Maybe the Sundara sock yarn that didn’t make it as the Bayerische Socks? That yarn is beautiful-no yellow in sight.

ETA: Note that Jennifer used the same Jitterbug colorway to knit these Monkeys, and they look awesome--no weird yellow splotches at all. But I still want this yarn out of my stash--I don't have the heart to try and reknit it.