The Perils of Online Yarn

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I saw this yarn on Etsy a few weeks ago that I absolutely had to have. Sure, it looked just like all my other s@!t, but it was coming from Europe and it was pure silk (and therefore it shouldn’t count against my moratorium on turquoise yarn) and I was dreaming of a beaded wedding shawl, so I bought it.

I won’t name off the designer here, because that’s not cool (and they might have a fit with what I did to their dye job) but when the yarn arrived, it looked nothing like the photo. I was so disappointed. I had expected a deep, ocean blue…

My Little Pony, anyone?

My Little Pony, anyone?

And gotten this instead. I decided to overdye the skein using Jaquard acid dye for wool and silk. I prepared a dye bath (and managed to omit the vinegar despite having done this a million times before, thank Rayna for catching that) and after a deep breath wherein I thought ‘what if I ruin it?’ in she went.

©Shireen Nadir 2014

She cooked until the dye bath was totally exhausted. What was my formula? Sorry, a dollop of sapphire blue and a dollop of turquoise… that’s all I got.

©Shireen Nadir 2014

Huzzah! This was the result after drying. Much more my speed.

©Shireen Nadir 2014

Now it basically looks like the photo on Etsy. Maybe a titch greener. I think it’s significantly different from all my other s@!t in that it’s much more blue, but all I got for this statement was a look that suggested I needed to get my eyes checked (incidentally, I’ve got absolutely perfect colour vision, according to this test so there).

©Shireen Nadir 2014

In love at last, time to go find some beads!