What’s better than rich creamy chocolate and tangy cherries? Yum. Although I’m afraid this particular image I found on Pinterest is possibly an AI image of ‘Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake’ (or at least augmented with the little cherry bits), no recipe was actually attached to the Pin, and well….that brownie looking layer on the creamy filling doesn’t seem possible unless you are layering that later. I did find a recipe that quite look good, check that out here.
Anyway, I’ve done some choco cherry in the past and while they were ‘nice’, they didn’t quite have the dark ‘punch’ I wanted. I also wanted the colors to have a chance to ‘do their thing’ in the dyepot, so instead of starting with brown and leaning it the way I wanted, I mixed up two browns from scratch, one with a pink base, another with red, both with good swacks of yellow and navy. I similarly mixed up a pink based red (did you know magenta + yellow = red?), and a red based red deepened with complementary colors.
To achieve the depth of color I wanted, I’d have to start with careful selection of the base yarn and fiber. This calls for Superwash, as the process to knock off the scales that can felt also opens up the spots where dye can bind. I had the perfect pairing of yarn and fiber for this purpose.
The fiber is a blend of 80% Superwash Merino and 20% Nylon. My supplier is touting these as recycled, however this isn’t deconstructed sweaters, but simply mill ends of the fibers, perhaps sourced from a number of places, that were re-carded and combined to create a lovely top. It’s still wonderful that they’ve turned a potential waste product into a more valuable product. I dyed this with the 4 colors in a double down and back method with roughly the same amounts of the reds and browns. Strip this down longways and spin stripes, spin as is and ply on itself for long swaths of color, or divide it up to do what you want. I do have several more braids of fiber if any club members are interested, otherwise they will be released to the shop in May or so.
The yarn is one I debuted last January, Safari 4 ply. It’s the same composition as my favorite Safari (75/25 SW Wool/Nylon), but has a 4 ply construction and is thinner overall, great for lighter socks that will fit in regular shoes. I also dyed this in a doubled down and back method, perhaps a bit more obvious here:
And here it is balled up….yummy!
My intent was to get spiraled stripes when this was knit into socks or mitts. I finally had a chance to throw this at my knitting machine, and I think I did indeed succeed!
And now I have a conundrum. While I like the thinner stripes at the top of this swatch (64 stitches around at about 8.5 stitches per inch), and that is what would fit my feet, I’m really loving the thick chonky stripes at the bottom where I was using 72 stitches. I think what I will do is try this on my circular sock machine where I can set stitches to rib down the entire foot. That would give me space for my heel (where the ribbing would stop in order to short row), and tighten up the rest. That’s a project to swatch for another day! All my measuring and calculations are not in vain, I have last year’s Sea Nettles also on Safari 4 ply to knit up, and since it’s a true gradient it will be fine at any stitch count.
Today is the last day to sign up for February Tiger Club, if you’d like to join the fun please learn about the clubs, then contact me through the website and I’ll send you a link to sign up. Thanks for joining me for a decadently delicious Tiger Club!
