Glarna:
OMG, it's almost finished! Just need to weave in the ends and sew up the arm holes. I almost can't believe it. I began this sweater back in March of this year. It got put on hold (with the body and 1.5 sleeves already finished) back in April, and was picked up again about 3 weeks ago.
Everything was going well until I got to the fair isle part. This being my first ever attempt at fair isle, I have to say that I am quite proud that I had absolutely no trouble at all working with multiple colors. It made sense to me right away and I actually found it to be quite fun.
My problem was with the colors that I chose. The body was made with Elann Peruvian Highland Wool Chunky 0211 Mocha Heather. My original colors for the fair isle were Bisque, Redwood, and Harvest Heather all in the same Elann yarn. I almost finished the entire chart before I realized that I made one of the ugliest sweaters I have ever seen. The bright orange, red and white design did not sit well with me, as the color combo looked very collegiate to me, with no specific college in mind.
So I ripped out all 32 rows of fair isle I had done (which was a huge mess), picked up the body stitches carefully, and decided to start again. I mulled over the choices of Peruvian Highland Wool Chunky on the Elann website for days before deciding on Bisque, Natural, and Tranquil Lagoon, a color that looks light blue on the website. When my new yarn arrived I was fairly disappointed. Natural and Bisque were much closer in color than how they appeared on the website (in fact they were almost identical), and Bisque had a very distinct undertone that I didn't detect online. The bigger surprise was Tranquil Lagoon. It was a pretty yarn, but not at all a light blue. It was very very close in color to the Mocha Heather body color, and when knitted next to each other, were almost indistinguishable. I decided to knit 25 rows with it anyway before deciding that I was now making an ugly 80's mom sweater. So the fair isle got ripped out once again.
The third (and final) incarnation of Glarna was made using the Elann Natural wool from before, and Oatmeal and a chocolate brown color of Lamb's Pride Bulky. The colors look great together, although I didn't enjoy knitting with the Lamb's Pride so much. It was much thicker than the Elann yarn and really slowed me down... but whatever, it's finished!
In the future I don't think I'll be shopping with Elann. While I know that It's mainly my fault for not ordering a shade card before ordering colors (I've learned my lesson, believe me), I've never had yarn differ so much from screen to reality than with Elann yarn. Almost every time I've ordered yarn from them I am somewhat surprised at the color I get. It's usually pretty different than the website thumbnail. As a graphic designer I'm aware of the color differences that can occur on screen, but I also know that my monitor is calibrated properly and that other brands of yarn don't look this different. Also, I think Elann charges way, way too much in shipping charges considering it takes about 2 weeks, sometimes longer, to reach mer here in Michigan. And their yarns pill. So, yeah, I think I'm done with Elann.
Leaf T-Shirt:
I began this project while waiting for the Lamb's Pride to finish Glarna. I'm using up a bunch of Berroco Comfort DK in black that I bought for another project I no longer want to make. So far it's been pretty fun. I just finished the raglan increases/sleeves. I'm kinda scared - it looks really small, like baby sized, but I've done everything right so I guess it will expand?
Berroco Comfort DK sucks. It's the splitmaster. I prefer Knit Picks Comfy.
Dashing:
Still working on this xmas gift for Sean.
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