Rethinking Arwen
Well, I've run into a few problems, and Arwen's on hiatus until I resolve them. I think I may have mentioned that the half-merino, half-plastic yarn I bought for the project is just not working out. It's too heathery, it kind of hides the cables, and the cables are also much too thick. It'd feel like I'm wearing armor. Plus I suspect it will pill like a crazy... pilling... thing.
So I bought purple yarn at Wolle Rödel, but it's not a good purple, it's much lighter than in that picture. I took that back today. The yarn lady and I scouted the store and I found a nice dark bluey-green in something like the right size (for size 8 needles, or 5mm), but it's half-cotton, half plastic, and I'm trying to get away from the plastic. The Yarn lady said the cotton-plastic won't pill, so I bought one ball of it, and am re-swatching Arwen.
But the gauge isn't exactly right, so I'll have to re-math the whole thing. And if I'm going to re-math it, I might as well just buy the bluey-green 100% merino at my LYS, which wants size 6 (3.5mm) needles, and not have to deal with plastic yarn. Argh, this is difficult.
Maybe I'll buy the 100% merino, knit the pattern without re-mathing, and then send the sweater to whichever of my nieces it turns out to fit.
posted by alala @ 3/09/2007
3 Comments:
I went through the same thing. I swatched for a week, using Brown Sheep Co. Cotton Fleece, and by the time I got gauge I decided I didn't like the fabric - too loose. I then switched to Aurora 8, got perfect gauge on my first try, cast on, and started stressing about sizing. I started over, casting on for the 37.75" size, and am crossing my fingers about the fit.
It's frustrating, but it would be infinitely worse to finish the sweater and find it didn't fit or the yarn choice was wrong. I *so* want this sweater to fit and look great - on me!
If you want to keep this cardigan and you can afford your first yarn choice, I would do that.
I won't want to keep the sweater if I make it with my first yarn choice. I'm not sure if this is as true in the States, but I am recently struck by how much compromise is involved in finding yarn for a project - to find the right confluence of gauge and color and cable-poppiness and non-splitty, non-pilly fiber is turning out to be harder than I anticipated. Even the green is a compromose - I wanted Arwen to be dark purple, but there just isn't any to be had right now. Sigh.
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