(Me and the swift and winder aren't on the best of terms.)
Several variables of the Evenstar project have fallen effortlessly (cough, cough) into place. One of these is the yarn I have chosen to use, Madelinetosh's Pashmina. Pashmina is a fingering weight yarn in an intoxicating concoction of 75% superwash wool, 15% silk, and 10% cashmere. I am using the Filigree colorway.
How I became the owner of six skeins of this yarn is a tale as old as Christmas. I purchased a crapload of Pashmina from Kaleidescope Yarns - the most excessive being three skeins of the Filigree - on September 5, 2010. On September 11 I began an Ishbel with a skein of the Filigree and became so intoxicated with the yarn and the colorway I was moved to buy the three remaining skeins they had in this colorway.
Now was three all they had left? I think so, but my memory is shit. I just remember thinking that I had to have enough of this yarn and 1080 yards wasn't enough. Not enough. 2160 yards seemed the more appropriate yardage. :/
Is it anyone wonder that I never added this addition to my rav stash? (Still haven't...better get crackin'.) I accepted the fact that I had been bamboozled by yarn fumes and didn't need any recorded proof of the crazeh. It was easy enough to hide this in my stash closet and pretend I did not have a yarn stashing problem.
So last week sometime I became obsessed with starting this pattern and I crawled the net vendors of fingering merino/silk yarns. I found nothing to inspire. Some yarn was almost purchased, but I held firm, kept looking until I gave up. And then I remembered the Filigree and didn't I purchase more of that yarn than I actually needed? OhyesIdid! OMG!!!! I have the perfect amount. Except
Except
Except
Except.
There is one itty bitty witty problem. This is an indie dyed yarn and the chances that my five plus skeins will vary considerably are near 100%. This project has no room for modesty. I am knitting an heirloom. (I wasn't able to provide real, live, human heirs, lol, but sure as heck I'm going to birth something goshdarnit!) It's gonna be hard to knit an heirloom with mismatching skeins.
Should I even try?
Of course I should. Boundaries are there to crossed. I am ready to cross them. I am up to the task. And if I don't succeed I can always try again. That, or I can check myself into a posh retreat for a few weeks "rest." It's only yarn.
Yarn...
So I took the yarn to work and used my lunch hour to open the skeins, spread 'em out, and pick an order to knit them. The picture below indicates the order I chose. And having the genius foresight to cake them all up to make sure this order worked, well, foresight is a good thing:
I found a lot more red in skeins I had deemed conforming. In fact I found the kind of red that outrages knitters who buy expensive, indie dyed yarns. In the picture below consider the center dark spot to be the center of a clock. The red spot is around 4 O'clock.
I caked these up in the wee hours of last Saturday morning. As I wound and wound and fought (successfully!) with my winder and swift, I pondered. Am I making the right choice using a yarn that may be significantly flawed?
I may not be acquiescing to loving a vampire who is nearly too cold to touch, hard as rock, and, preposterously enough, SPARKLES like glitter in sunlight, but I am not immune to liking things others would find defective or technically flawed.
I love this yarn and I love it's red spots. If I wanted the dull symmetry of matching skeins I would have bought a commercially prepared yarn. I don't want that. That isn't me. That type of yarn will not keep my inspiration on yard 1798 of 1800 of this project.
