Today I had to spend the evening in the squirrel cage again (that's what I call working overtime — Thomas Disch reference, probably not the best one), but I knitted during my dinner break. The hearts & harps (Kristi) socks are now at the heel flap. It feels good to get to one of those "sock milestones", and it means that things are progressing well.
I also did some rows on the double knitted jacket. The side branches on the trees are now done (yay!), which means I have two more rows to go before I leap up the chart and start working the tops of the trees. I've decided to chop the bottom branches off the treetops in the interests of not running out of yarn.
That's the good news. The bad news is that tonight I was working under my halogen living/dining room lights because of the aforementioned stint in the squirrel cage, and I noticed that the current working skein of black yarn, which I added in about ten rows (and about 4,420 stitches ago) is not the same dye lot as all the black yarn used to date. It's very close — it only shows up at certain angles only under the direct halogen lighting, I didn't even spot it in regular daylight — but it's definitely different.
I am a total freak about checking dye lot numbers, so I am not used to having this problem. My first after-school job was at a yarn shop, and looking back it seems like I spent 60% of my customer-facing time checking dye lots (the other 40% was spent explaining that yes, I was only 16, but I had been knitting for half my life, so yes, I could help them).
Some of the black yarn has a dye lot of 34902. The rest has a dye lot of 34902A. Well, now I know. Something to watch out for with Lion Brand in the future.
There are lots of Tricks You Can Do to minimise a dye lot shift, but dark colours tend not to show up as much as lighter ones, and the truth is that the spread of dye lots over the remaining skeins that means that most of the tricks won't work. The difference is completely invisible on the "day" (mostly blue) side of the work, and only somewhat noticeable on the "night" (mostly black) side. It figures that the dye lot change happens just when the foliage and the birds thin out, but once the treetops start it will be less noticeable again.
Fuck it. I'm using up stash for this one anyhow. If it took me over four days in several types of light to notice it, I'm not going to sweat it. I'm certainly not going to rip it all out and look for another project at this point.
Onwards and upwards.
I also did some rows on the double knitted jacket. The side branches on the trees are now done (yay!), which means I have two more rows to go before I leap up the chart and start working the tops of the trees. I've decided to chop the bottom branches off the treetops in the interests of not running out of yarn.
That's the good news. The bad news is that tonight I was working under my halogen living/dining room lights because of the aforementioned stint in the squirrel cage, and I noticed that the current working skein of black yarn, which I added in about ten rows (and about 4,420 stitches ago) is not the same dye lot as all the black yarn used to date. It's very close — it only shows up at certain angles only under the direct halogen lighting, I didn't even spot it in regular daylight — but it's definitely different.
I am a total freak about checking dye lot numbers, so I am not used to having this problem. My first after-school job was at a yarn shop, and looking back it seems like I spent 60% of my customer-facing time checking dye lots (the other 40% was spent explaining that yes, I was only 16, but I had been knitting for half my life, so yes, I could help them).
Some of the black yarn has a dye lot of 34902. The rest has a dye lot of 34902A. Well, now I know. Something to watch out for with Lion Brand in the future.
There are lots of Tricks You Can Do to minimise a dye lot shift, but dark colours tend not to show up as much as lighter ones, and the truth is that the spread of dye lots over the remaining skeins that means that most of the tricks won't work. The difference is completely invisible on the "day" (mostly blue) side of the work, and only somewhat noticeable on the "night" (mostly black) side. It figures that the dye lot change happens just when the foliage and the birds thin out, but once the treetops start it will be less noticeable again.
Fuck it. I'm using up stash for this one anyhow. If it took me over four days in several types of light to notice it, I'm not going to sweat it. I'm certainly not going to rip it all out and look for another project at this point.
Onwards and upwards.