Dyed Fir Cone

I dyed my Fir Cone shawl last night (in between rounds of trying to get my almost-2-year-old to sleep) and it's blocking now.

The carpet sucks obscures the pattern a little bit but you can get the general idea. I'll take some better ones tomorrow or Sunday. This took me about two hours to get right--I knew it looked off but until I got down with a tape measure, picked a center point, and measured about 20 different directions, I figured out where things needed to move. It's still not perfect but it's close enough for me until its next blocking (shudder!!).

I'd thought that it would block out into 3/4 of a square but it REALLY didn't want to--it wanted to be in a more winged shape.

Overall, I think I'd give this finished item a 6 out of 10 on an expectation rating; I thought I'd like the non-pointy end over my butt, but I think it's reeeaaaaly bad--I don't need another horizontal line there to emphasize my width. I'm also disappointed with the wool, especially after the gloriousness of the Alpaca Cloud I used for the Kiri. I'm pretty happy with the color though, which is why this project is scoring as high as it is. Before dyeing it was hovering in the 4 out of 10 range, so things are looking up. I added a little too much red to the bath (one of these days I'll remember to wait until ALL the dye has been absorbed before I start "correcting") but I think it's fine. Not as blue as I wanted, but totally livable and a big improvement over the differences between the skeins.

Sorry for being pissy and negative--head cold that the rest of the family has is finally hitting me, and I hate having a sore throat. Whine! Hopefully things will look up after more sleep (4 hours last night and about 4½ the night before do NOT make for a happy camper).