magic splotches

ugh..I wrote this whole thing out and then when I was about to finish up..Opera 9 beta crashed and I couldn't recover my post.
That's what I get for using two betas to blog, I suppose.

Anyways..I was talking about Lion Brand Magic Stripes.
I LOVE the colors..they are all so cute.
But the yarn has issues that mean it will be fine for socks for me and the girl people in my family..Bill doesn't do..stripes..magic or otherwise...
but it will not be good for the light verticle striped sweater that I have always wanted to knit for myself.
It is for one thing..rough. I have heard it softens after washing...I was thinking some hair conditioner.And it IS reasonable for socks if you knit at a guage of 28 stitches per 4 inches or less..for shits and giggles I guaged with a size 1 US and it was a bit unfriendly feeling.

But the bigger problem is in the dying. I have twice in a short amount of yarn used found undyed spaces mid stripe..and there are splotches and flecks from where the yarn of one stripe colored area touched another.
This makes it look like you are knitted in a splotch in the cases of bigger areas..and dirty when knitted up when it was just a small fleck.

I now am coming to the pic part..and will copy and paste this text. The crashing in the last attempt for pic uploading related, I am sure.



The above is a sock for Becca and my multi needle playing around swatch..NOT a guage swatch..just fooling with the yarn.
I frogged the sock, and started with another pattern that had fewer typos and mistakes in it. ( funny how someone SEEMS to be so clever until you actually READ what they wrote..but that is another issue..one I will not eleaborate upon, because I dont believe in being nasty for nasty sake.) I also was kind of astounded at how poorly I knitted the ribbing and couldn't live with such uneveness..and people would know for all enternity that I knitted that.
Anyways..see that splotch..and the kind of dirty look?

That's why for the sweater I always wanted..I will keeping searching for a self striping yarn..or just do it the less magical..old fashioned way..intarsia verticle stripes or sideways as I would do if using the self striping yarn..The world wouldn't end. I just like the less yarn and bulk with the self striping.
I also wonder..if I knitted the stuff up and down..would the stripes be cut short..and I would have kind of jagged irregular stripes? Worth playing with I think.

by the way..still waiting for my knitpicks order..oddly enough, it is taking some time. I live in the same area as they are located and assume that is why I always recieved pretty quick. But they just did send out yesterday, and FedEx hasnt even dropped it off to the US postal service yet.
This is upposed to be a time saving method..maybe just money saving..dont know. I qualified for the free shipping ( my order was well over 40 dollars. *blush* so if knitpicks can save themselves some money this way, I'm ok with that.