duh.

While pondering what to do with the Madli's shawl that needed to go bye-bye, I kept wishing I could find a travel project that was as perfect as the Estonian Garden Wrap that I knit while we were in Hawaii a couple of years ago.

Suddenly, a forehead-smacking moment! Since that Estonian Garden Wrap was given as a gift last Christmas, why don't I just knit that pattern again, in this yarn? Yeah, that's the ticket!

:::rip rip rip::: went Madli, saving the iridescent beads which will probably be substituted for the nupps on the Estonian Garden Wrap.

I'm not sure if there's enough time to start the new project before we leave, but it feels good to have a plan for that lovely Woolen Rabbit yarn. Meanwhile, I started a Just Enough Ruffles scarf in burgundy angora. Should be a fun little project with a nicely wearable result.

Houston, we have a problem

Or do we?

You may remember the Estonian Garden Wrap that appeared out of nowhere, entirely pleasant project that it is. Well, I have two skeins of this lovely Woolen Rabbit handpainted yarn and am pretty sure the wrap will be the right size (long enough that I can wrap it once around my neck and ends hang to waist if I want to use it as a big, beautiful scarf) if I use every last bit of those two skeins. This means the transition from one skein to the next happens at the mid-point, which will be front and center on the wearer's neck. But there's a significant difference in depth of color from one skein to the next, even though I tried my hardest to choose similar ones when I bought them last February.

Overexposed pic in the bright winter sunshine,
but you get the idea.
The shift is no less jarring in real life.
I've seen the suggestion of alternating skeins every other row to make the transition less abrupt, but that made it stripey, so I only did it once. I kept knitting for a while, thinking it would mellow out, but no.

I have asked people's opinions around here, but I need more input and so I turn to you, dear blog readers, for a poll, because I know you'll be straight with me and tell it like it is. When answering, please keep in mind that I have enjoyed every stitch of this project and would love to see it through to completion, but would not mind even a wee little bit if it needs to be ripped back some or all of the way. Really. Truly. Cross my heart.

So, what say you? (if you're reading this through a blog aggregator, click through to my blog to vote)

What's next for this Estonian Garden Wrap?

Just quit yer fussin' and keep knitting. It's handpainted yarn, you knucklehead, so embrace the variations.

Tear back to the transition and try knitting from the other end of the 2nd skein, as it may be darker there.

That yarn wants to be something else. Tear the whole thing back and work on your green sweater until the Philosopher's Wool cardigan kit arrives. :-)

I'll describe a different solution in the comments.

.

I just rec'd a message that the poll isn't working for somebody, but it has worked for a couple of other people so far, so I'll leave it up here. If it doesn't work for you, could you please just leave a comment instead? Thanks!

Estonian Garden wrap

I finished the last dozen rows of the Estonian Garden wrap at a knit night last week, with about two yards of yarn to spare. Here, for Priscilla, is a pre-blocking picture.

And a post-blocking shot to illustrate the magical transformation that happens during the blocking process.

It's about 65" long, lightweight but warm. It was a good choice for vacation knitting, a good fit for vintage yarn received in a swap, and will always be a good reminder of the early morning knitting time surrounded by the all the glorious greens of Hawaii.

Even though there was snow here yesterday and today's about as colorless as it can be. In defense, I'm off to work on some colorful gloves before heading out for dinner and a show!

a wee bit o' stitchin' o' the green

I knew Leah was working on a secret project. She came out of her room this morning and plunked this Sweetheart Tree acorn heart on my desk. She then informed me that her next needlework project will be a Sweetheart Tree springtime heart, either forget-me-not or violets, and she wanted to stitch that on an evenweave fabric instead of Aida, and would I please take her to Thistle Needleworks today? Sure thing, you Sure Thing!

I'm still working on the Estonian Garden Wrap, my green lace project. The "small flowers" section is an 8-row repeat, easily memorized, so it was perfect vacation knitting and I got a lot of it done on our trip. Only a few more repeats of that to go and I'll be ready to knit the other end section!

deathflake z

Leah knit these mittens for cousin Zach for Christmas. She did a mash-up of the Deathflake chart and an opening evolved from the Peekaboo mittens (so he could poke his fingertips out when he needs to, except she overlapped the ribbed flaps for warmth), using Ella Rae yarn that's a heavier weight than called for, so they're super thick. She switched to smaller needles for the top solid black section, to keep the peekaboo ribbing from bulging out and also keep the solid black section the same gauge as the stranded portions.

I know the mittens look like the left one is way smaller than the right, but that's an optical illusion because this picture was taken on a pile of fresh snow, so the left one is at a different angle than the right, but you can't tell because it's all disappearing whiteness! They match and they're cool.

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Thanks for all the input on the Estonian Garden Wrap. You all came up with some excellent ideas, potential solutions that I hadn't even thought of. Ruth, especially, thanks for the idea of doing the ends in the darker yarn and the center section in the lighter skein. I think that would be the best option if I had my heart set on making this pattern using these two skeins and nothing else.

Even though "quit yer fussin'" is slightly ahead in votes, I think Deb R :::howdy neighbor!::: hit the nail on the head when she said if it's bugging me now, I'll never be happy with it, so I'm leaning toward tearing the whole thing out. No biggie. But I'm also not going to rush because one other idea has since popped into my head. I bought this yarn at Spa Knit and Spin last Feb. and will be there again in just two short months. The Woolen Rabbit will be a vendor there again this year, so maybe I'll write to Kim and ask her to bring the darkest skeins she has of that Arabian Nights colorway and I'll see if I can match it up there.

If not (or even maybe if so), LaurieM was kind enough to put up a pic of a sweater she has in progress, made from a free pattern I've had my eye on for a long time, and that led me to browse other versions of that sweater on Ravelry, which led me to this version. Substitute in some Woolen Rabbit purple for the yoke, a cone of midnight blue Harrisville heathered yarn for the body, and whoa, could be awesome. Or maybe some spectacular twisted stitch gloves from Laris' designs. Options galore!

Off to play with fire. :-)

hey, where'd that come from?

I cast on the Estonian Garden Wrap (yes, another one) just before vacation. I didn't knit on it while we were away, because I was doing other projects, and I've finished plenty of other things since we got back, so I'm not really sure how this one arrived at this point. I think that just goes to show the intuitiveness of this pattern, how easily it flows from the needles. A lot of bang for the buck, I think, when it's the kind of pattern that goes easily into my head, so I can just zip along without referring to the chart a zillion times. I'm subbing beads for the nupps this time, using the dental floss loopie way of putting them on, as demo'd by Mona from Dye Dreams when we were at Stitches East. Loving it. I'm not going to have enough yarn, though, so I suppose I'll need to deal with that eventually. ;-)

Just had a brainstorm to help with one of Leah's xmas projects. Bingo!

couple of quick things

You've seen the shark hats we knit for Scott and Zach. Now the pattern is up at Knitting Ninja. Since Leah and I were the test knitters for this design, the pattern includes pics of some silly kids you might recognize as they're happily getting munched by sharks. Nom nom nom.

I started the Estonian garden wrap (shown at Elann because the Fiber Trends site won't come up for me this morning) with vintage wool I scored at the stash swap a couple of weeks ago. Those of you who are lace knitters will undoubtedly see the boo-boos that identify me as a relative newbie to this kind of knitting, but it's also partially attributable to the countless distractions around here yesterday evening and the fact that I was foolishly trying to follow the written pattern, having forgotten that there were charts on the back of the leaflet. With the help of the charts and some quiet time this morning, I'm on track now and will leave the mistakes as a mark of the learning process. At least for now. We'll see how I feel about it after I finish the other end...correctly. ;-)

Leah's making fantastic progress on her first sweater, having finally realized that it's not such an enormous undertaking and definitely spurred on by how her yarn is knitting up into a cushy, beautiful fabric.

My watercolor cardigan is blocking. Love. It.

Have you guys tried the pattern browser in Ravelry yet? I had been searching before using pattern names and tags, but last week I discovered the pattern browser and, wow, what a helpful tool! The filters make it incredibly easy to sift through the many thousands of patterns and narrow it down to the ones that will be of interest.