Rehabilitating a Bad Yarn back into Society

To say I used to have a love/hate relationship with the yarn that is in the 4th position of my Bottom 5- Top 5 strategy is an understatement. I loved the softness, the texture, it was not complete melting soft mush like some yarns, but not itchy scratchy wooliness either. It was a beautiful bulky nubby mix of something in between. And I even loved the colors, the brownish gray-mud part, contrasting so well and playing so nicely with the lighter beige mixed in, and that jewel-y pretty purple part. Well... Most of the colors...



Yikes! It's that acid green stripe of heck that just appears out of nowhere! What is that? I so don't love the acid green stripe. It burns my eyes and makes it sad. I swear it literally hid in the middle of the ball until I got it home and tried knitting the horrible cowl that is shown above. (Actually it's not a horrible cowl, it just wasn't different enough to mix up that green!) That acid green totally tricked me! But-don't despair-Bottom 5 Top 5 can fix a lot of problems. It can make the best of a bad situation. Maybe it could even tame that crazy acid green into something perfectly acceptable, perhaps complimentary at times, that I do now adore and welcome very readily near my face and around my neck.



Yarn: Katia Nepal
Pattern: Simple Yet Effective Shawl by Laura Chau-modified

I changed the pattern slightly so that I increased 4 stitches every right side row as written, but still increased 2 more stitches- one at the beginning and one at the end of every wrong side row. Similar to the increases from Ishbel. The result is a shallower, wider, less pointy triangle, more suited to wrapping and gathering around my neck all cuddly-like. This is not a shawly-drapey situation people. I don't really think bulky yarn ever is really. This is a "scrunch it down in that gap between my chest and my coat and block out all the chill and conserve warmth situation." Yep. That works.

Now there's just one more final yarn to go in Bottom 5 Top 5 except.. (cue record scratching sound)



Oh. It's lace in fingering weight. It's still a one skein project, and it's more of a scarf than a shawl but still... it's just not going along as quickly as the scrunchy bulky Katia shawl I just made that took 3 days. This one might be a little while. I'm much further along than in the photo above now, but still, I'll have to report back later on this one.