A few years ago I bought one skein of wildly variegated, thick and thin, Araucania Magallanes. If I’d been shopping for myself I never would have bought something where texture and color were having such a wild party together. But I wasn’t, I was actually looking to make a scarf for a friend of mine to whom texture is the salt of the visual universe. Plus it was really pretty in the skein. Got it home and the prettiness continued into ball form.
But all knit up it just looks barfy, like it very strongly reminds me of the time Chris Stephenson created a sensation by throwing up on the handball courts after the 6th grade pizza party. Too many color nuggets. And it isn’t soft enough. Soft enough for me certainly, but not to give as a gift.
So Magallanes has sat in the closet for years, occasionally let out to be knit up, frogged, wound, knit and frogged again as I pondered what exactly to do with her. I wouldn’t use a felted purse, and knitting her together with a strand of black or navy in imitation of this sweater would just mean having to find more of this problematic yarn. Finally Urchin came along and I thought I’d found the perfect pattern. Short rows might make the variegated color flashing more interesting, and garter stitch would work well with the thick and thinness. Plus I love hats - making them, wearing them, whatever.
I cast on and knit for 2 nights, with diminishing optimism. It’s a good pattern, but sadly not as perfect for this yarn as I had hoped. I soldiered on, thinking maybe blocking would achieve something magical, but by the end of the eighth wedge I was pretty discouraged.
Besides, I had left my glasses in San Francisco the week before and had sorta felt my way along, occasionally getting my bearings by holding the hat at arm’s length and making Marty Feldman-like faces at it, a system that wasn’t gonna work for the big picking-up stitches and kitchenering finale. Putting the hat aside and waiting for my glasses to arrive from the hotel was hard and in the end I couldn’t do it. I got antsy, mucked up the pick-up, sorta went into denial about that, and decided that a three-needle bind off was the way to go. I told myself that the seam would be barely noticeable amongst the garter and that this kind of half-assery was perfectly acceptable on a quickie project.
It was not acceptable, the bind-off was noticeable, it looked crappy, and I was still reminded of barf.
I gave up.
Meanwhile this is making me giggle, you might enjoy it too (though I recommend skipping ahead to 1:03.)
Siena said,
I have exactly the same problem. I bought a skein of handspun multi coloured yarn from Manos del Uruguay looking just like your skein a long time ago, and still haven`t figured out what to do with it. Urchin looked interesting, but judging by your experience I won`t try it. Strange with yarns that look better unknit than knit…
13 Nov 08 | 5:57 am