Lesson Learned

I am certain that I am not the only knitter who has experienced the following phenomenon:  Learn to knit.  Realize there is a whole big world of breathtakingly beautiful yarn in local yarn stores.  Fall in love with gorgeous variegated colorways.  Begin to acquire lovely variegated yarn.  Start knitting. Realize that variegated yarn may be gorgeous in the skein but that I don’t actually wear multi-colored clothes.  Wise up and learn to buy solid or semi-solid yarns and chalk up the unused variegated skeins to a learning experience.

Although I learned my lesson quite well when it came to yarn, I was not clever enough to apply this logic to fiber.  I recently posted some lovely fiber purchases.  Here is one of them again.

I started spinning this braid almost immediately after I came home with it. I finished spinning and plying early this week, and I have sat and admired my pretty skein for the last several days.

Last night, I wound the yarn, and began knitting what I intended to be the first of many log cabin squares for an afghan.  I stumbled across the most beautiful afghan on Ravelry a few weeks ago—(picture HERE)—a blanket of blocks, each of which was knit with a different handspun yarn.  I’m pretty sure discovering this project is what jolted me into my current spinning fervor.  I love this blanket.  I want this blanket.  I’m totally going to copy it.  It’s the perfect use for spinning.  I can spin several different colors and it will all have a specific purpose.  I like things to have purpose.  Spinning yarn just to sit in a drawer doesn’t work for my goal-oriented personality.  Anyway, so I started knitting.  I got a few rows in, and even from this little bit, I realized it was way too colorful for me.

Since I don’t have to wear the afghan, somewhat variegated is acceptable, but I thought of what this square would end up looking like, pictured a whole blanket of variegated squares, and felt a little nauseous.  I’m not sure “ugly” is the right word (although it very well could be), but whatever it would be is definitely not how I’m picturing this project.

I thought about a few other recent fiber purchases, all of which I sort of intended to use toward the blanket project. 

 

Um, no, pretty sure none of these are going to work.  Each braid has simply too much color contrast.  While walking away from pretty painted fiber may be difficult, it must be done.  Lesson learned.  Again.  

It could be worse.  I could have learned this lesson after the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival.