Delayed but Done. . .

Hooray - got the mittens for my Mum finally done and sent off, and they only arrived one day late for her birthday. This project had languished for more than a year so it was great to finally finish them.  The alpaca supreme yarn from John Arbon makes these super soft and cozy, but oh, how I hate doing thumbs in colourwork.  So fiddly. 

With the cooler weather upon us, I was digging out my warm shawls to take one to Yarndale and came across my Byatt.  Which seemed the perfect shawl to take as I was hoping to meet Karie Westermann, the designer (I did - she's lovely).

Only problem - as I took it out and examined it again, it just didn't feel right. Honestly,  I've never struggled so much with getting the colours/tone right for any pattern, which has nothing to do with the pattern and everything to do with me wanting to do justice to such a lovely design.  I've started and frogged this shawl so many times, just never satisfied with the final result.  Here are just a few of the starts and stops.

Version #1: not enough contrast

Version #2:  Contrast fine, but felt the white was too stark.

Version #3:  I really thought this bright yellow would work, but it turned a rather sickly green against the blue.  Not flattering. 

Version #4:  And then there was this "finished" version.  I had even added beads and thoroughly blocked it.  But on closer examination (just two weeks ago),  the brown just seemed all wrong to me; a big block of rustic alpaca (with a bit of halo) among the glamour of intense, deep colour.  I knew I'd never wear it and what's the point of that?  

So I frogged it back, yet again, to the first part - that garter triangle of Rowan Fine Art variegated 4ply - and bought another skein of the same yarn in a purple colourway.  And this is the result:

Now here's the funny part.  All those colour experiments were a result of worrying about running out of the green yarn.  Karie had warned that it would use up almost every bit of the 400m skein.  I didn't want to risk it, and have to start again, so I thought the best way was to insert a third colour.  But I didn't even try knitting with the whole skein and as a result have knitted way more on this shawl than I ever would have if I'd not second guessed the skein. These are the days when you do think that knitting makes you a little nuts.  Especially since I then worked non-stop to finish the shawl in time for Yarndale.  I was binding off at 2am on the Friday night in my hotel room.  Yes, knitting can make you a little nuts.

I love it now though, and especially how all the colours in both skeins really complement each other in richness and tone.

I will get a lot of wear out of this shawl this autumn and I swear, I'm not tinkering with it anymore!