It Looked Good in the Hank

I don't have a picture of this Schaeffer Anne in the skein, and I regret that now. I regret it because, as knit, this yarn looks like an entirely different creature than it did when it was looped and twisted and on the shop shelves. It was mostly steel blue-gray, with a strong shot of rich purple, and just a dash of teal and yellow. Based on the color changes, I suspected it would knit to a purple/gray body with shots of hot color, maybe with a resulting pattern something like this:






















As you can see, though, the Schaeffer Anne doesn't look anything like that. It's barberpoling, which is like a pox on my house in any event. Me and the barberpoles, we don't see so much eye to eye when it comes time to knit the second sock, which never, ever manages to stripe in an acceptable manner.

But the bigger problem in the barberpole is the way the green and yellow come together. Separated, they looked like nice shots of color waking up the darker shades. Together, they make an odd, jarring splash between the purple and the gray. The green takes on a kelly cast, where it's actually more of a hunter-teal shade on its own.

I'm also disappointed with the way the gray is pooling. It's flat and a little dead-looking. The other stripes in the barberpole are shaded and intermingled with at least two tones. The gray is all gray.

Right now, I'm debating whether to keep knitting in the hopes that the pattern will grow on me. Option two would be to rip it, wind it back into skeins, and just overdye it some dark color. Like black. Black would wipe this mess right out of existence, right?

I don't know. Anyone have any better ideas?