My Shetland Lace Shawl and the Virtue of Alternating Multiple Skeins When Knitting with Malabrigo

When last we visited my Shetland Lace Shawl, I had just realized that I should have been alternating skeins as I knit, because they were clearly different.  I immediately commenced a program of switching skeins every four rows.  The tip of the scarf definitely has a more "mustardy" appearance than the rest, but I'm hoping that it won't be obvious — at least not to anyone other than me.

Shetland2

Um, it's pretty obvious.  I know this, but I keep hoping it will go away.  Worst case, I will resort to a gentle overdye to try and unify the colors.

One tip: had I wound all of the skeins into balls before I began, I think I would have been forced to confront reality.  In the future (and I've got a red Malabrigo sweater about to come up in my queue), I'm going to wind everything in advance and try to avoid convincing myself it will be okay.  You can see from the balls wound that this was never going to work out without alternating the skeins.

Shetland1

However, I'm eternally optimistic, and this project is no exception.  I pulled it out of my bag at brunch this morning for knitting show and tell with my Mom, and everyone around us ooh'd and ah'd.  Perhaps I caught the problem early enough and it will all work out after all.  It is definitely lovely up close!

Shetlandswatch

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