I Still Have some Thursday Stuck to my Shoe

O, what a strange week this has been.  On Monday I had everything figured out, and every day thereafter, I got a little bit Wrong-Er.  

I briefly posted an actual jpg of my Butterflies chart without even thinking about the fact that anybody could just knit right from it.  I don't want to sound un-generous, but it's hard enough to make a living as a knitter without accidentally giving away the store.  I realized I had shot myself in the foot and took down the chart.  But not before I got several gracious thank you notes for posting the "free pattern".  It WAS my mistake entirely, so if you managed to save a copy of the chart before I removed it, good on you.  Just please do me a favor and don't sell it or share it.

And then there was yesterday's bizarre re-sending of a post from July (yeah - I got that too - FeedBurner must have really liked that one?) to all my subscribers.  Sorry to spam you with old news; I have no idea why that happened.

But the biggest Wrong Thing I did this week was to declare with certainty what yarn would be in this year's Madrona knitting kit.  Before I swatched it.

A funny thing happened between my design and the beautiful Sincere Sheep yarn I was planning to use.  Turns out my stranded colorwork design was totally wrong for the gorgeous, subtle natural dyes that I love so much:

What's wrong with this picture?  Other than the fact that the unblocked knitting is kinda wobbly?  CONTRAST.  Or lack of it.  Sincere Sheep's naturally-dyed hues all have roughly the same value; resulting in butterflies that don't stand out from their background enough to be read. My design just didn't do the yarn any favors.  And as much as I wanted it to work, I had to grit my teeth and start over.

Now I've done a total reversal.  And this time I know it's really going to work.  Because the new swatch is underway, and it's HOT.  This is Kauni, from Denmark, whose crazy self-changing colors are going to make everybody's project just a little bit different from the others.  And what could be better than that?

So, what have we learned, Dorothy?  

1.    Sometimes the first pancake has to be fed to the dog.  It doesn't mean you stink at pancakes; You just have to try again.  The hardest part is admitting you've made dog food.

2.    We don't just swatch for gauge.  Things I also learned from the first pancake include: I don't really like two-color castons for corrugated rib.  I don't like corrugated rib for this piece in the first place.  The background behind the butterflies needed to be a tonal fade of ombre, rather than delineated stripes.

3.     Stranded Colorwork swatches worked flat (which I was doing to estimate yardage) should be against the law.  Purling back in pattern is totally sick and wrong.  Which I know you know.  It just needs to be repeated from time to time.  No need to try it yourself to prove if it still sucks; I've done it for you.  You're welcome.

I'm spending the weekend knitting butterflies.  See you on the other side.