Insanity Meets Its Match

I was so excited when Mary at Unwound Yarns introduced me to Wolley’s Yarn Creations CCC – Black Cherry 100% cotton yarn.  I bought it on the spot and by the time I arrived home I had the pattern design worked out in my head.  I jotted down a few schematics and then put the yarn in my stash.  I hate having more than one major project going at a time!  A month later it was time to set to work, with this being the result.

"Cleopatra"

The original color wave started with black lightened to plum and ended with cherry. 

"Black Cherry" after a washing

Since there are 4 strands I had the brilliant, or rather insane, idea of stripping off one strand, flipping it and rewinding the yarn. This would not be a big deal if I had a winder, but you know what happens when I’m left to find a creative solution to a problem!  

 

Not only was I wanting to strip one strand off, there was a very particular strand I wanted.  

But of course, I didn't know which strand it was until I was into the plum section and saw which black strand was the longest

I had found my strand!

Now the fun part...

 

Once I found it I stripped back to the beginning and started rewinding the yarn.  I wound 3 strands onto one spare knitting needle and 1 strand onto another.  

Wee, art in motion

I admit, I had a little too much fun watching it spin

Finally, separated.

 

After that was complete I took the needle with the one stand and rewound this onto a new needle in order to reverse the order.

Oh, so cool!

 

Then recombined the 1 strand with the 3 strands.  

Rewinding almost done

Rewinding, c'est finis!

Time to interrupt this story for a short pattern note: the stripping off of a strand and rewinding into a unique color wave is completely optional.  The pattern provides a neat effect with the yarn worked as is. 

 

A few days later, with my insane idea realized, I was ready to start knitting!  Since I had already worked out the pattern mentally, I was well on my way with only a few false starts.

Lace meets cables, just in time for Valentine's Day

 

Then I saw it.  My heart sank and I literally had a look of shock on my face.

Can you see it? The point at which I erred?

This is my literally "shocked" face

 

Did you see it?  Let me zoom in to show you my mistake.

My mistake, front and center - I cabled the wrong way!

 

Now you should know me well enough by now to know I am a perfectionist when it comes to my knitting.  Errors such as this are not permissible, so the only thing to do it rip it out.  Are you ready?

But wait a second, I’m smarter than that.  I have an edge stitch.  Thank goodness for the edge stitch.  It will take some surgery, but I can just take down the cable column without taking back all those inches of completed work.

Never underestimate the value of an edge stitch!

 

So now, with my edge stitch secure with a marker, it is time to start ripping.  Cringe if you want.

All that work for not in the presence of a mistake

 

I used other st markers to mark which rows were my cable rows, least I forget.  And start working my way back up.

I am a magician, mistakes magically disappear
(with several minutes of intricate work)

 

Now that all is right in the world, and my work, I can finish the pattern.

All's well that ends well

 The ends needed a little accent, so I added tassels.

I make tassels with index cards!

One down

Two down!

 

And as the French say, “Voila!”

 

In order to see the color wave, which was so inspirational to me, I took a few close ups.  

 

I also have to send a special “thank you” to my sister who named the pattern for me and the Dane Yard who gave me a few suggestions I might use on future projects.