Yarn Chicken or Design Element?
Today's question is "did I lose at Yarn Chicken or win at Design Element?"
I am very intriqued by this pattern: Match and Move by Martina Behm aka Strickmich. She is one of my favorite designers. She uses some unique and interesting construction techniques and that is why I have knit this shawl twice. A rare feat for me.
I started my first Match and Move after seeing a friend's scrappy version. I decided to do random striping in a variety of colors with a consistent background color running throughout. As I knit this I was confused by the how the construction was coming together. It worked but I wanted to better understand how it was working. So I started again with a new choice of yarn.
Which brings me to my question and this confession. I just hopped over to https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/match--move to verify the yardage. Erm, apparently I did not read it carefully before. It calls for 1094 - 1148 yards of fingering weight yarn. I seemed to remember the number 5?? so I knew when I started this second shawl with Perth (a 2-ply fingering yarn from Queensland with a long shading habit) that I would need a bit extra. So I threw in a few extra rows of solids with Brown Sheep Nature Spun Fingering. Eventually I ran out of my first ball of yarn so I started in on the second continuing to sneakily add in the Nature Spun solids. Now as I was getting to the end of my second skein clearly before I was getting to the end of my shawl rows I decided I was NOT cracking into a third skein of Perth so I decided to put in longer repeats of the solids. When I got to the last rows and was binding off I wasn't sure how I would feel about the appearance of my shawl. I like it. It is a large comfy creation and I like the way the colors worked out on the end.
So after all that I guess I would say I won at Design Element. I want to share a few tips on how to win. We laugh about mistakes a lot saying that they are "design elements" because sometimes it is just not practical or it is too depressing to take out and rework something.
Be realistic...will it work out if you don't take it out? Sometimes a knitting error will make the item unstable. If that is the case you just have to fix it.
Done is better than done perfect (unless you are entering the item in the State Fair). If your work is being judged then you need to strive for perfection.
You have creativity in you. Embrace it.
So speaking of these two yarns; Perth and Nature Spun, they are both available in the Tiny Yarn Shop. I enjoy yarns with long color runs and a solid will also complement them.One of my favorites is Zauberball Crazy from Schoppele Wolle in Germany. I am waiting on an order, trying to be patient. Nature Spun is from one of my favorite yarn mills in Nebraska. Brown Sheep is a family business and they have been spinning wonderful wool yarns from domestic wool for more than 40 years. I have sweaters knit from Nature Spun which have been around for a quarter of a century.
Well this post has taken me much longer to write than it should have. I hope that it has been inspiring.
Happy stitching
Rebecca
