I’ve got the blues

After months of green and purple and gray, both of my new projects are very blue. Here are the swatches:

The brighter blue is yarn that was recently overdyed with the help of Annette. This is the mysterious yarn I bought at the Longo Mai mill in France in summer 2015 – I bought 8 skeins of a natural color (breed and yardage unknown).

Boy 1 wants a new sweater this year, and this is the only yarn I have in quantities for a sweater right now. With Annette’s help, I overdyed it blue (Boy 1’s choice).

Neither of us realized that the skeins were so tightly tied in places. That meant that the dye did not completely penetrate the yarn that was constricted by the tie. In some places the difference in subtle, in others it is more pronounced:

I think the result has a tweed-like effect, as you can see in both yarn cake and swatch.

Boy 1 ended up selecting a vest instead of a sweater – he likes the Dr. G’s Memory Vest. I made a stockinette swatch before realizing that the pattern gauge is to be measured in the large cable stitch pattern. I don’t quite have gauge (I get 22 stitches over 4” and pattern calls for 21), but I’m forging ahead anyway. The smallest size is for a 36” chest and Boy 1 measures only 31”. S1 advised making the smallest size and waiting for him to grow into it if it’s too big. So that’s what I’m doing.

All these cables and twists make for slow knitting. But I think that a vest is a good project for this yarn, which is kind of scratchy. Wearing it over a collared shirt will be very cozy but not scratchy.

The other swatch is for a baby sweater I’m making for the expected child of a diehard Penn State fan. The colors MUST be blue and white! I don’t think I have gauge here, either, but I haven’t done any serious math yet (too busy knitting cables).