FO (Fixed Object)
A sweater I knit my husband over two decades ago lay at the bottom of a closet, improperly stored in a cardboard bin. Kids and life, you know. Sweater care was far from my mind back then. (I've long remedied this and store all my fiber, knit and otherwise, safely.) I pulled the sweater out recently and discovered some damage along the neckline, probably silverfish. Honestly, I’m surprised it wasn’t much worse! I couldn’t find any leftover yarn to repair it but, thankfully, I had recorded the project notes in a binder. This was long before Ravelry! The yarn was Rowan Summer Tweed and, of course, discontinued. I found some resellers but I didn’t need much so I thought I’d try making some first and order if I had no success. What good are these spinning and dyeing skills if not to use them! The yarn I needed to replicate was 70% silk, 30% cotton. I blended those proportions of natural beige tussah silk and undyed cotton into rolags on the blending board and spun a 2-ply yarn. I was hopeful the natural colours would match the Raffia colour of the original but they did not. So I dyed my mini skein, foolishly thinking I could "eyeball it". The yarn was too golden and not a good match. I tried again. I had no more tussah but I did have some natural beige muga silk. I repeated the rolags taking the opportunity to also apply the cotton more evenly. The first yarn was a bit more slubby than the original sweater yarn. When I dyed the yarn this time, I wet a sleeve of the sweater and held it beside the wet yarn in the dye pot and adjusted colour slowly. This was much more successful. It’s not a perfect colour match but it’s very close.
Pictured above: the original tussah and cotton fibers, the original blend of the two on the blending board, muga and cotton rolags, muga/cotton 2-ply before washing and dyeing.
My husband is not a sweater guy and will never wear this one again so I took the opportunity to close up the neck a little to fit me better. Now I have another enormous “boyfriend” sweater and I’m cool with that, especially since this one is handknit, handspun, handdyed, and repaired by me.
