Here are a couple of close ups of what I mean about the yarn going awfully fuzzy for not yet having been worn at all, the purple at the base going much more brown, the colors overall getting faded, and white spots turning up on the orange bits (you can scroll back to see earlier pictures for comparison).

And look, yes, color is just downright HARD on screens. And these were taken on different days (which fundamentally means different light). But all the color in those four sinks full of bright pink water was coming from somewhere, and that somewhere was the yarn, so it’s not a stretch to think that yup, some of the lovely vivid colors in the yarn were more muted now (whether from washing away down the sink or from getting muddy when loose dye landed back on the fabric despite doing what I could to prevent that).

And it’s weirdly hard to get a good photo of ‘ugh, this is getting super fuzzy compared to how it was when we started, if this is what it looks like before it’s been worn at all, it doesn’t bode well for the hat’s future.’ So again, it’s ok if you’re looking at this and going ‘huh, I really don’t see it.’ A lot of it is ‘how much did this change from how it was initially,’ and that’s not the sort of thing that shows in a photo.

Hell, I tried VERY HARD to talk myself out of seeing it. I loved the yarn when I bought it (and it cost more than what I usually spend on yarn). It’s a pattern that means a lot to me for a whole variety of reasons. And I spent a lot of time knitting the hat. I wanted it to be awesome!

But it just wasn’t.

And, when I went to get the second ball (of what was ostensibly the same yarn, bought from the same retailer, at the same time), and found it weighed 20% less than the first ball, it was One Thing Too Many.

I looked at the second ball more closely and I *think* maybe the base yarn actually changed between them (that would explain a lighter weight at the same yardage), or possibly the second skein was a different base and mislabeled.

I’ll talk about why I think that next time we rejoin the saga (alas, character limits over on instagram, and the blog posts and instagram posts being basically the same thing because instagram is where most people see what I write, so I have to write things that work for that format, it sucks, but it’s also how things work on the internet these days, and I have to account for it if I’m going to make this business work). But first, we have some friends to welcome back tomorrow!