I’ve been working on another Dreambird shawl and the person who asked me to make it had a very specific idea in mind in regards to colors. It’s a gift for a friend that loves purple and she wanted the feathers to be done in a purple color changing yarn, but without any other non purple toned colors (so no green, red, etc). It’s actually more difficult to find than you’d think, I never realized how many purple color changing yarns use green in with it. I love that color combination, so if I were making it for myself I wouldn’t mind, but I wanted to find something she’d really like.
It turned out to be great for us both as I found the perfect colors in Knit Picks Chroma Fingering (in the color Hollyhock). She loved it and I was excited too as I’ve been eager to try this yarn for quite a while. People rave about it all the time and it comes up quite often when I search yarn suggestions for different patterns on Ravelry, so this was my chance to test it out. They don’t deliver to the Netherlands, which is the main reason why I’ve not tried it up to this point, but it just so happened that the lady that wanted the shawl lives in the states and ordered it to send to me to make her shawl.
So far I have a very love / hate relationship with this yarn. I mean, the colors are gorgeous…
I got a lovely surprise when I opened the package to see that she’d also included two balls in other colors (Vermont and Sandpiper) as a gift! The photo (a quick photo taken with my mobile) does the colours no justice at all, they are absolutely beautiful.
The self striping yarn on its own? Love it! It’s a single ply yarn that has a fair bit of variation in the thickness, but the as I said, the colours are stunning and I just have no complaints about it at all.
The black, on the other hand, is another story entirely. This is a photo I took of the Dreambird project this morning…
The project and color choices itself are great. I love the shades of purple on the black background and I think it’s working out wonderfully. That black yarn, though!!
Oh my word, the variations I’ve seen throughout this ball of yarn have been all over the map! Thankfully I’m able to remove the large fobs and even out the thickness, but should I have to, really? No, I shouldn’t. It’s not just that, but the excessive dye is worrying as well. As I’ve been working on this project I’ve watched the black dye rub off onto my fingers and my stitch markers and it has me concerned about when it comes time to soak this project for blocking. One option is to ‘spritz’ it instead, just to be safe as I’m really quite worried about the black bleeding into the lighter purple colour. Another is to try soaking it with a colour catcher sheet in the water, if for no other reason than to deal with the excess dye issue before handing it off to its new owner.
I think my best bet at this point is when I finish the shawl, to knit up a small swatch using both yarns and soak that to see what happens before I decide either way.
In hindsight, I wish I’d soaked the yarn before I started, but there was really no way for me to know. Having made so many shawls using the Sheepjes Invicta in black with lighter colours without an issue, I didn’t expect that it would be an issue with this yarn either.
It’s still a lovely yarn and I can see why so many people use it and enjoy it. It’s entirely possible that this one ball of black is a fluke, but I’d be lying if I said I loved it. I do love the self striping Chroma and am excited to use the other two bonus balls I got, but I think in the future if I were to make something like this with a combination of black with lighter colours, I’d choose a different brand of black yarn.
Now I will finish the shawl, figure out my plan of attack for blocking… I’ll be back with an update!
