Washing Handknits



I had a knitting scare yesterday. I was blocking the above glove in warm soapy water and the red color of Knitpicks' Palette started bleeding. With a white background this could have spelled disaster for the color pattern. I quickly grabbed the glove and immediately put it on a towel to block but I still think I can see a bit of bleeding on the white near the bottom of the glove.

It was so weird because I'd never had this happen with Palette before. I wonder if there are ever "rogue" skeins of yarn that bleed dye or are dyed differently?? This happened once before with Nature Spun sport weight and my Pablo Neruda socks. I'd used Nature Spun a zillion times but the purple color bled near the foot on one sock when I was washing them and ruined them. Here are the socks before that fateful moment.



I'm also not sure if this was a current skein of Palette or one from several years ago. I'm getting another batch of Palette soon and I'll do tests with it before I proceed. Anyway, the gloves above combine three of my favorite knitting things: 1) lots of colors, 2) knitted letters, and 3) those wonderful Norwegian charts of people holding hands. I plan to add some embroidery to them as well to add even more colors.