Fourth time's the charm?

I'm finally finished my Geodesic Cardigan this weekend. I quickly tried it on and really liked how it fit, but the colour was no better on the finished product than it had been in progress. I just didn't like the difference in the light purple and the darker raisin....



Plan B was then initialized. I had thought that I would overdye the cardigan in red with a slight hint of blue to blend out the lighter purple of the cardigan and give the whole sweater a more "tone on tone" look, but something went wrong in the process and I ended up with a cardigan that was basically the same colour as the original, but with deep purple-ish, blue splotches on the shoulders and blobs of the same colour on the arms... it looked like a dye pot had been thrown at me and dripped down the sleeves..... it was weird.

So, I tried again... this time without any blue and was rewarded with the exact look I had been going for..... well, except the blue splotches were even more pronounced....



So I tried again.... this time with just a small amount of blue and NO red....... apparently it was not enough blue..... the sweater remained basically unchanged......


And so..... the sweater hit the dyepot for the FOURTH time.... with more blue..... and it came out a lovely dark, dark, dark purple..... there are still some lighter reddish purple spots on the arms and back and the yarn felted every so slightly, but overall, I am happy with the result...... and more than that.. I am thrilled with the idea of the "overdye"..... what a great way to make a sweater the colour you want..... well, assuming you actually GET the colour you want in the dye process.... practice makes perfect, I suppose.....

I could NOT get a decent picture. Outside, the sweater is so dark it's almost black and inside with a flash, you can really see the weird variations in colour that are still in the garment.