The Willy Wonka of the Wonky

Well, I've completed the first glove/mitten I've ever made in my life, and I'd have to say that there is some wonkiness going on. As with anything being done for the first time, there was a learning curve here. Not learning of the actual techniques, which I'd done before, but learning in the sense of how to do it better next time to make the mitten look better. There was a little bit of playing the hand I was dealt, also known as making lemonade out of lemons. For this project, I was trying to use stash yarn AND match an already existing scarf at the same time. I only had enough of the blue to make one entire mitten, and I couldn't find the color in any of the LYS's I went to, so I improvised and bought some heathered green that sort of matches the scarf. Therefore, I had to change the pattern on the mitten top to including striping so that the other mitten top can have striping too, thus tying them together. As a result, there was a little designing-on-the fly. Not sure how well it worked out.

As you can see from this photo, I continued the bicolor theme by binding off in the green.

The good news is that my ball winder and swift arrived on Wednesday, so I spent the evening learning how to use it. This means that I spent a good amount of time untangling yarn that had wrapped itself around the swift and the ball winder. But, I think I'm getting the hang of it.

I also received my two hanks of Rowanspun DK from the UK, but to my shock and dismay, this yarn looks nothing like the yarn I bought in La Jolla. There's not even a family resemblance. The characteristic felted look of the Rowanspun is simply missing in this random yarn I received. The color, ironically, is a dead-on match. I thought THAT was supposed to be the risk of going with different dye-lots. Shouldn't the texture of the yarn, itself, be the same? Silly wabbit. Luckily, someone on Knitter's Review has saved the day and has an entire bag in this color. She doesn't like it, so I may just buy the whole damn bag off of her since I happen to love it.