Freehanding.

I sat down a while ago to try to start on my second crazy "art" scarf for the art show at work.

I proceeded to massively tangle a big hank of railroad ribbon yarn, which appeared to have no way of actually telling where the loop was twisted, and spending the next hour untangling that by hand, then trying to wind it with the ballwinder, only to have it shoot off the ballwinder and launch into the air making a colossal mess all over the dirty kitchen floor, and leading me to (re)hand wind it.

Ahem.

So then I sat down to actually knit up the scarf in my head.



Um, yeah. No. Not gonna work.

I am attempting to change colors via this series of slipped stitches that makes sense in my head, and should, if it works, make the changes between yarns very gradual.

However, as is obvious from this swatch, I'm not doing enough to control my tension, especially since I'm working with not just different colored yarns, but different weights and textures. I love that Colinette ribbon yarn, but it's a bit "tricksy" to say the least.

So now, instead of a head start on an arty, boho scarf, I have a swatch of, well, utter crap. Pretentious crap.

Doesn't help that that Noro yarn with the silver thread in it started with the black portion of the colorway. I think it looks literally like crap sitting on that swatch. Bird crap to be specific.

That was probably too much insight into how my brain works.

Sigh. I'm going to go off to get coffee now, and frog the thing, and restart it on 10.5s instead of 11s. And hopefully, I will get my wits about me and do this so it turns out a little more like what's in my head.

I suppose the good thing is that I do like the way the colors are working out. So that's working for me at least.

To respond to my loyal commenters on that last post:

Michele: I don't think anyone in Columbus has koigu as of yet. I got mine at Fine Points in Cleveland when they had their super sale last month.

Rat: I have Lorna's Laces, Koigu, Lion Magic Stripes (plus another one), Patons Kroy, Lang JaWoll, Cherry Tree Hill and Knitpicks Simple Stripes at my disposal right now. I'm thinking the petticoat socks out of Weekend Knitting out of the Koigu, but I'm not sure -- I'm open to suggestions.