Warning: Black Does Not Scan Well

Crochet design often presents many frustrations that seem to come out of nowhere.  I ran into one of these roadblocks recently when I designed a crocheted hat.  After spending many hours working on it and its significant amount of detail work, I brought it over to the scanner to start the submission process.  The hat was worked entirely in black simply because that was the first skein in my stash I grabbed of the correct fiber and weight.

That is when I discovered something new.  Black does not scan well.  None of the intricate details I had so painstakingly worked into this design showed up.  This is not lace, but rather texture detail, so no amount of blocking would help.  I tinkered with the scanner settings, to no avail.  After cursing the technology, I had to face facts.

I now was left with 2 choices:  redo the hat in a different color or make the submission by mailing the hat and all other related materials.  Reworking a swatch is not really an option as the shape of the hat is crucial to the design.

It is always helpful to find a way to make a roadblock to work in your favor.  In this particular case, it looks like I will be doing my own pattern testing to see if I can re-create this hat in a different color following my own directions.

I've never had issues scanning surface/textural detail in lighter, more colorful projects.  Now I have learned that black is not a good choice for working samples I plan to scan.