Multi-colored handpainted yarn has its place, but in this case, it did not belong in a complicated alpaca sweater. It looked like clown barf from a very sick, sad clown with emphysema.
The alpaca yarn was way too busy and too many clashing colors in there: red, black, brown, blue, green, yellow, purple, orange, pink and then a whole lot of mud.
It's actually quite a lovely sweater- very Voguey and stylish, but the complicated cables going up the sleeves were lost and it looked like it was knitted with more than one dyelot as there were sections that were darker then others. I was commissioned to overdye this.
I got to work mixing dyes. I knew I'd have to go much darker to hide some of the dark browns and reds, so I chose to do a dark blue with some red undertones.
Since it was alpaca, I was super careful about stirring and agitating it. Once it sucked up all the dye, I left it in the dye pot overnight to cool before attempting to rinse it.
Voila! A new sweater emerged in a classy-ass navy blue, with darker shades taking place of the barfy brown and black.
Cables usually get lost when you use darker colors, but compared to the busybody yarn this started out as, you can now actually see the cables clearly.
Ahhhh, much better now.
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