These are photos of the Shape Shifter in the original version. I love this design. It works just the way I imagined it would and is the perfect traveling garment. In one direction it's a coat. If you turn it upside down it's a jacket with a hood. It's a blanket on the plane or a bathrobe in the hotel. It's a cozy curl up on the bed and read garment, or a glamorous wear it with a dress and boots kind of thing. The simple garter stitch is flexible and the texture really highlights the color shifts of a hand dyed yarn. You can find this pattern on my Pattern page or on Ravelry or on the ThreadsofMeaning site on Etsy. There is one problem, however, with the prototype version of the Shape Shifter.
The original version is knit from a hand dyed pure alpaca. Alpaca is a very soft and drapey fiber and, as a consequence, the original Shape Shifter has a regrettable tendency to grow in length as you are wearing it. I have long wanted to try it again with a pure wool, which would have more bounce and elasticity and would mitigate the getting longer as you wear it problem. So I ordered this bulky pure wool from Webs this past week and, as usual, the service from Webs was excellent and the price was very good. The problem??? Not loving the color. So all 20 balls got skeined up on the Niddy Noddy and put to pre-soak in Citric Acid and water. They are going into the dye pots today. I'm thinking I'll over dye with a Kelly Green and maybe some Turquoise which should give me a lovely Teal color. I'll keep you updated as I progress.
And here is the update. This is the result of over dyeing the grey blue in the picture above with Kelly Green and Turquoise. There is still some of the grey blue peeking through, the shifting greens and brighter blues are there, and a serendipitous lavender/lilac color has also managed to show up. I do want to point out that this is not exactly the results that I was anticipating. I thought I would get a duller teal color and I could get closer to what I intended by over dyeing with some Forest Green and/or a thin wash of black. But I am going to let this hang around the studio for a while and see if I like it better than what I had in mind in the first place. This is one of the prerequisites of happy hand dyeing .... an open mind that likes to be pleasantly surprised. Actually that may be one of the prerequisites of a happy life now that I think of it.
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