Wow, the response to the Viola Afghan was much bigger than I expected! Some of you have been asking about washable yarn substitutions for it, and I’ve been working on that for a few days to get the colors right.

One benefit to our good ol’ workhorse Wool of the Andes is that, since it’s really a ‘staple’ yarn, we can have an enormous breadth of color. That makes it so versatile for designing – but not machine washable! Finding a suitable substitute for Viola has proved to be quite a challenge. The palette of Swish has waxed and waned to a balanced, tight family, and Brava is too new to have the expanded color range that it likely will see in the future. The best option came in the wide range of purples in Shine. So, along with washability, Viola has had a drastic hue shift in this version!

Since the yardage on Shine is a little less than that of Wool of the Andes, you’ll need a little more of each color, and each substituted color is used in place of the original in every instance. So, here is a Shine-y, purple Viola!

Colors are listed as Original (quantity) Substitute:
Blossom Heather (1) Blush (2)
Rouge (1) Cosmopolitan (2)
Papaya Heather (1) Crocus (2)
Hollyberry (2) Pageant (3)
Caution (2) Dandelion (3)
Orange (2)Clementine (3)
Fairy Tale (2)Serenade (3)
Semolina (2) Cream (3)
Coal (4)Black  (6)
Currant (4) Iris (6)
White (4) White (6)
Red (5)Wisteria  (8)
Cranberry (7) Hydrangea (11)

All of this has got me thinking about ways we can expand our washable lines – I’d love to be able to present a good washable and non-washable yarn for future wild patterns!

(edited to fix the yarn quantities and color – thanks, commenters!)