Think of it as chocolate cherry! I see some red/pink in there!

oh no! i like the above suggestion of chocolate covered cherry. think positive.

But poopy brown is so funny!!

Awww. I agree, chocolate cherry. It should be interesting to see how it knits up though.

You know it might look totally different skein'd up and knit up. *uncomfortable silence*

I made a scarf once in those same colors... Not my cup of tea, but I had the yarn lying around. I called it "wine and chocolate" and it sold instantly!

ummm...these are NOT my colors so please don't "gift" this yarn to me. i've seen enought poopy brown to last a lifetime (courtesy of ms. scout)...in fact, i think i might have been called poopy brown on a grade school playground but blocked it out of my memory :)

Obviously I can read this, too! Your skein looks good for something November-ish, maybe 'barberry' since that's how my bush looks when it's lost its leaves but the birds haven't eaten all the berries yet!

hiLARious. oh well. good luck with the next skein!

Am I the only one who looked at that and went.. OOhhhh yam yam, I _love_ that!!
You should send it to me and share the poopy brown love :-P

Honestly, I think there must be others than I who would love that yarn deeply.

Lene in Germany

Overdyeing can make amazing changes. Enough to make you look forward to mis-takes.

Okay on poopy brown...I'll make sure I don't do that for you....LOL!

I like the colors too :)

Oh....I'm so sorry to hear about your frustration. If it's any comfort when I saw your yarn I thought of chocolate covered cherries and not what you said. Hug.

Did you use your One Shot kit for it? Prochemical has instructions for their One shot:

http://www.prochemical.com/directions/OneShot.htm

It has instructions for both immersion and for rainbow. They also have instructions for all of their dyes on the website. I love rainbow dyeing and you do have to make sure that as much of the water is wrung out before dyeing. Think of it like as much water as you take out is how much dye the yarn will take in. Also, it won't run as much. Also try spacing the colors out a little as they will want to spread, so if you give them a little space then they will have room to spread out. I once saw this wonderful dyer that uses mainly primaries so that when it spreads the overlap gives the secondaries. She had some fantastic combinations that I just drooled over. One more thing is try using just 2 colors. I have had some wonderful successes with mixing streaks of yellow and pink to make fire or sunset, or blue and yellow to make "sea" colors. 2 colors at least guarantees that you won't get brown.

Maybe it's awful in person, but really, it doesn't look so bad to me. The melony, coraly color will probably jump right out at you when you knit it up. And you know that the Jaywalker pattern is magic, and makes any yarn look fantastic, right?

Can you overdye?

I acually like those colors, of course I'm alo a fan of brown and pink togeather.
Call me nuts, I would buy this yarn, willingly!

I don't think it's so bad, and a hat or handbag would look quite funky with those colours. At least you are going for it!

The downtime problem has been resolved!

Thanks for the info, Shannon. Hooray for tech guys! (Now I wonder if they can help me with handpainted acid dyeing?)

Somewhere in the world is someone who would love to have poopie brown yarn...I just don't know them!

Hey, I kind of like the poopy browns and reds. I bet it will knit up really nice. I'm sure that if you offered it up in a contest it would draw lots of entries! ...or you could bring it to the Knitsmiths Swap this weekend!

Let it be said that your web host's problems should now be resolved (so say the Gods of T1 Wires).

You never know--it might knit into something very sophisticated and unique!

Don't give up on it yet, Alison! Nothing's keeping you from re-dyeing that with a more saturated and darker color, or for example a red that would make the now red part darker and the brown a nice brick red. It wouldn't be what you were shooting for at first, but that's kind of how dying goes. At least for us beginners. ;) But I think you can still save the yarn. And you know, the ultimate solution after re-dying a bunch of times is to go black...

Yuck? I love that yarn! Brown and red together are one of my favorite combos! Don't disparage until it's knit up...I'm thinking it will be lovely.

You need to wring out most of the water from your prewetted skein first, then just use bits of diluted dye - the goal is to not get things too wet. Things will bleed if your skein is too wet or is dry.

Thanks for the tip, Chris. I was thinking that had to be the problem. The instructions say to squeeze out excess water, but I wasn't clear on how vigliant I needed to be with the squeezing out.

And thanks for the link Lavendersheep! I didn't realize that "rainbow dyeing" was the same as handpainting. Those instructions look great. I didn't use the one-shot dyes to start, just the washfast acid dyes. But now I have some, so maybe I'll try them next.

I love those colors! I think they're beautiful!

you could immerse the yarn and overdye with red or something i bet it would turn out nice. i found when using koolaid, you need about 20 packs per 100 grams to get a nice rich color. i know you're using acid dyes just try using way more than seems necessary, and you can always overdye again if it doesn't turn out dark enough

We had a dyeing/painting workshop at spinnning class about half a year ago. What we did was thicken the dye slightly by adding to it some ammonia and wall paper glue (the non-toxic sort)- I think it's called manutex(??). It does smell a little and i dont know the exact proportions, but it worked!

Alison, if you can wait until Monday, I will be home and I can give you some concrete numbes. If not, check my and Claudia's comments to Stasias post here and consider this book (sorry for the ebay link but couldn't find a good photo of it anywhere else).

Poopy brown is not my thing either, but I bet that will be quite pretty when it is knit up.

Actually, I like that color combo, and I don't think it really looks all that bad.

I did a lot of dying back in artschool and then dyed silk scarves and wool. If you absolutely don't like the colours that you've gotten and don't think that overdying will get you results that you like, try to "discharge" the yarn. It's like bleaching it, but of course not with bleach as that would just disolve the 100% wool. There is a product called Thiox that works great. You don't get back to pure white, but white enough to start over.

http://www.prochemical.com/directions/Thiox.htm

Let us know how you fare...

I bought a red and brown skein at christmas time that was named "Rudolph"

If you presoak your yarn, then put it in the washer on the spin cycle, it will come out slightly damp and not be dripping alot pre-dyeing. Then when you add the dye press the skein so that it absorbs most of the dye before adding another color. Before you heat set the skein, you can blot it with some paper towels to absorb any extra dye that might run into other colors. HTH!

It's a mocha sunday--with a cherry on top!

Try Jacquard dyes and dye bottles with very narrow, long tips to focus the dye direction. Also, did you use a drop or two of liquid dishwashing detergent in the pre-soak? That acts as a surfacant and allows the yarn to absorb more of the dye.

Very nice first attempt!