600

I made this batch of string last Thursday.  It's 8 ounces of Dicentra Designs roving in a color I can't name, that I bought at Black Sheep Gathering last year.  I'm making a sleeveless dress to wear to a wedding later this month, and I happened to notice that this bit of fluff was exactly the right color to go with it.  So I spun it up, fast and dirty, into a bumpy squishy and lovely bit of 2-ply.

I threw it into the suitcase, unfinished, knowing that my pal KT could be talked into finishing it for me.  I'm on the road teaching this week, and her house was one of my vagrant resting places.  I was right, and KT worked her magic, finishing it with her patented "WHUMP Really Hard On The Edge Of The Bathtub Technique".  Lady's gifts are epic.

I'm calling it Mad Fandango, and it's going to be a ruffled shawl to wear to the wedding.  I've never knitted a ruffle before.  What could possibly go wrong?  

Well, among other things, the 600 stitches I cast on for the ruffle edge were way too long for the cable I had chosen.  Not that I realized this until I was at my sister's house, in the Capitol of Nowhere Township.  Lucky for me, I had longer cable with me. Unluckily, it was deeply imbedded in another project.  Same thing we do every day...

I got the cable problem sorted.  That's when I noticed that 600 stitches makes for a long damn row of knitting.  One would think that this sort of observation would be self-evident.  Particularly after having cast on said 600 stitches myself.  Evidently my powers of observation require repetition to deploy.  

My great grandaddy Clarence Wolff was an interior designer in Louisville, KY in the 1930s and 40s.  In addition to an outstanding and unorthodox sense of color, he was well-known for his love of ruffles as a design element.  I've been thinking of Granddaddy, whom I never was privileged to know, today as I struggle with this ruffle. While Clarence did love his ruffles, he never actually had to fabricate (or for that matter, iron) any.  He had people for that.  An entire workroom, in fact, with many seamstresses, whom he kept fed (and hopping, too, no doubt) all through the depression and the war.  He kept the windows at Burgorf's Department store, and the fashionable parlours in and around Louisville, dressed for tea in miles and miles of his signature ruffles.  

People in my family sometimes compare me with him, in the way I love to dress things up.  I think it's a great compliment, and I really do wish I had managed to be born in time to have met him.  So even though this might be both my first and my last ruffle, I'm using it to spend time with Clarence Wolff.  

Here's lookin' at you Grandaddy.

The Results Are In

Many sincere thanks, Gentle Readers, for your words of opinionated wisdom,  What a clever and generous lot you are!  The winning candidate, based on your input, is "A".  Here is another shot of it, in natural light.

"A" would like to thank its many supporters, and promises to remain both deep and sophisticated, at least through the first few washes.

In other news, I'm leaving for a long, romantic weekend by the sea.  I'm taking someone very special with me:  Someone warm and dear, who has known me for quite a while, and who has been through so much with me that we have truly become soul mates:

I'm sure you all remember Caora Dubh, the 5-ply handspun.  Here is the very first swatch, with which I am pleased to distraction.  The sketch is my jumping-off point.  I have chosen some really pretty cables, and found some very special buttons, so I feel good about the direction we're headed, the String and I.  To say I have a crush on this yarn is putting it mildly.  Knitting with it is a sublime experience.  There are simply not words to describe the enjoyment.  I think we are going to have a really intimate and enlightening time together this weekend. 

Sure hope my husband and children being there won't wreck it.

Delicious Dilemma

A surprisingly challenging thing I find about designing handknits is how often I have the urge to backseat drive, where yarn colors are concerned.  Yarnmakers have mad skills that I can only dream about, and the colors they offer or don't offer are as much a part of their art as my designs are part of mine.  But sometimes, try though I might not to, I formulate an opinion of what sort of yarn I want, and then set about trying to find it.

Having the cart and horse in this unnatural order nearly always leads to disappointment.  It turns out that my ability to imagine a yarn in no way impacts the yarn manufacturers' desire to make one.

No, it's far better for me to see the available yarn choices first, and then concoct a design to go with them. 

So imagine my dread when I made this swell handspun yarn, and then was persuaded by a friend to go searching for a companion for it.  I knew exactly what I thought it needed, and despaired of ever actually finding it.  And then this shade card came!

Behold the choices!  Almost any of them would work beautifully!  In fact, there are not one, but three contenders:

Choice "A" is a deep, moody merlot.  Neither purple nor red, it floats in the netherworld in between.  "A" reads Dostoyevsky, listens to Chopin, and nearly always remembers its mother's birthday.

Choice "B" is a pure periwinkle, descended directly from Vinca Minor.  "B" is fashionably late to parties, has far too many friends, and a weakness for pulp fiction.  "B" wears cultured pearls to the dentist.

Choice "C" is the sour apple that makes your jaw ache before you've even tasted it.  "C" cares not a whit for the opinions of others, wakes up appallingly early, and once lost an entire weeks' wages betting on the ponies.  "C" knows which fork to use, but usually goes for the spoon.

Which of these is your favorite, Gentle readers? Which would you take out for coffee?  Which would you introduce to your mother?  Which would you trust with a secret?  Thank you for weighing in!