Afghan-osity

I'm almost done!! The anniversary was two days ago, so I'm a little late with this one, but I'm so close to finishing! I'm convinced I could've finished on time, but there were about 2 weeks last month when I didn't knit at all... we had company and then my hands were all bruised from mountain biking.

Anyway, I think my parents will forgive the delay. They are expecting a present, but I'm pretty sure they have no idea what's coming.

Here's what it looks like so far:

I'm still need to finish the last two strips and attach those. Then it's all about sewing the end in...and then it's off in the mail.

However, there is an issue. You may be able to see it in the first picture, but there are definite color discrepancies within this yarn.

Here's a picture that shows the screwy color more clearly:


Each cable strip only requires one skein of yarn, but the lattice and the honeycomb patterns need more than one skein, so those are the ones with the obvious problems.

Yes, I know about dye lots, etc, etc....and I wouldn't be complaining if I was at fault here. Ok, I might still complain, but seriously, the yarn labels were misleading.

Here's the deal: the yarn I'm using is the economical, yet still soft, Caron Simply Soft. One of this things that this brand boasts is that its yarn is NO DYE LOT. Meaning, I assume, that they claim the yarn color is always consistent, regardless of when if was dyed. Even so, I bought all of this yarn at the same time from the same store...trying to minimize the differences in yarn age and sun exposure and other things that might affect the color. AHHH! but they were not the same color!!

I'm not about to re-do any of the pieces, so now I have to problemshoot. My options as I see them are:
1) do nothing. This is a present for my parents and I'm sure that they will love it even with a slight color issue. Also, it's not that noticeable when the afghan is on someone's lap. You can really only see the color discrepancy if it's laid out on a flat surface.
2) mess around with dye. I haven't really thought this one through, but it includes some black dye and a short dip time. We'll see.
3) wash the whole afghan excessively and hope that the colors blend a little better.

I'm leaning towards option 3 now, but we'll see what I feel like when I'm done.

Here's another looks at the screwy color:


And time for the close-up...

The Cable Pattern: 3 down, 1 to go



The Honeycomb Pattern: 1 down, 1 to go



The Lattice Pattern: 1 down


Oh, PS: I learned how to cable without a cable needle! Take another look at the honeycomb pattern and you'll see why I bothered learning this shortcut. It makes cabling sooooo much faster!