Actual knitting updates

Please, my devoted tens of readers, try not to be overcome with surprise.

Ok, so I dyed the ugly green/yellow/orange koolaid scarf. I meant for it to be this color (or a variation thereof):

(teal jacquard dye from knitpicks)

And instead it came out this color:


Um. That's not teal. I think maybe it's because I used twice as much dye as the instructions called for. Well, maybe it was three times as much. Heh.

However, despite the lack of tealness, I think that the black is a decided improvement over the koolaid colors, and honestly, who doesn't like black? So once I get this sucker blocked and ready to go, I'll package it up and send it off for a Christmas gift.

I just wasn't up for the blocking last night.

And yes, for those who ask, the Knitpicks dye was super easy to use, and they had an excellent tutorial on their website.

An actual photo of the epic knitting fail

Unfortunately, I tried to take pictures at night in our crappy apartment light, so they're not as clear as I'd like them to be.

Although that might be in my favor, because then it's harder to see my incompetence with the knittage:


As you can see, on the left side of the ridgey middle bit, the stitches are all loose and ugly. Bah. I will need to rip back (fortunately haven't knitted all that much) and start over again. Plus the yarn overs on the lower edge aren't working (thank you Shortly for the advice in the comments).

And I hate, loathe and despise the needles I was knitting this on. They were Kollage square needles. Somebody may love them. In fact, if somebody wants them, post in the comments and I'll ship them off to you. I have two or three sizes. International shipping is fine.

My problems with them are:
1. my knitting is loose to begin with, and even though I go down two full needle sizes below what I normally do on regular needles (which is two sizes below the pattern size usually) my knitting still looks loose with these. Apparently they are very good for supertight knitters, which I am not.

2. I HATE THE JOINS on these needles. nuff said.

3. I don't like the cables. Yes, they are very flexible and that is cool, but when I'm knitting with them and the stupid cable gets all twisty on itself and I have to untwist it constantly, that drives me bananas.

4. They cost $16 US, and I have already thrown out a pair of these needles because the finish came off the corners of the squares, making for not very smooth knitting.

Yeah, I'm not really giving a good advertisement for them, but seriously, you may love them. So drop me a line if you're interested.