Dyeing to Swatch!!

I was at the grocery store yesterday. Of course we're close to Halloween so the place is packed full of krap. However, there is one thing I stumbled across that made me very happy: Black Food Coloring! Yay!

Now back when I was in college, I had a professor (don't remember which class this was even for) that had us mix our own black paint. This is not so easy to do, as it really wants to be a dark foresty green. I assumed that the food coloring would have a similar issue, especially when I diluted it to dye yarn.

I was on the right track (as I of course got some on my hand when I opened the bottle, and it was a nice dark green). However, when I added it to the dye pot and threw in my swatch, it wasn't green, but a lovely reddish brown! Hey, I can live with that!!!

So I think Matt's St. Patrick's sweater can be saved. I am soothing my regret at losing the beautiful color by buying enough to make him an other sweater (however, it will be a simple st. st. pullover, and I'll remember to alternate skeins).

So now I'll just need to pull out the big pot and get St. Patrick dyed up! Should be done for this week's Fix It Friday!! (meanwhile, I'm still knitting a dog sweater... and other than those two swatches, I've been good and not cast on anything else!!).