The Shifty Saga- part 2

Original yarn selection, not bad really but not what I was going for

The saga continues with my total break down and finally buying some amazing Spincycle Yarn and let me tell you that was not a decision I came to lightly. I felt like a total sell out and even wrote a blog post about it. This yarn is absolutely amazing, and I came to the realization that the only way I would truly be happy is if I broke down and bought the yarn. I had such a hard time coming up with the colors I wanted to use. Having never worked with any yarn like this before I had no idea how it was going to knit up or how the colors would work with one another. After much deliberation I finally settled on what I hoped would be the perfect colors for my sweater.

Getting closer, but still not perfect

Mistake number one - don’t settle for colors outside your comfort zone. When the yarn finally arrived, it was nothing like I thought it would be. That is the hard part of buying yarn online, you can’t see it in person and just have to pray it looks something like the pictures online. I would say 90% of the time the yarn I order online turns out exactly as I’d hope it would, but with handspun styled yarn you never truly know what you are going to get. Well, the yarn I got although beautiful and amazing was not what I had hopped for. That doesn’t mean I didn’t give it a good college try and start swatching immediately.

What I hope and pray is my final selection, 2 of the original yarns remain

Mistake number two - don’t start a project with yarn if your heart isn’t in it. I so desperately wanted this to work that I ignored my inner voice saying I just wasn’t happy. I think I felt guilty because I had just spent so much money on this amazing yarn and felt that if I couldn’t make this work then what was it all for. I continued on knitting the yoke but gave up pretty quickly, this just wasn’t working. I set it aside and had a good long pity party and tried to move on, but just couldn’t. This pattern had a vice like grip on me and I just couldn’t let it go. Determined to try and make my colors work I ordered some more Spincycle yarn in the same colorway to see if those skeins would work better. One of skeins worked better which renewed excitement into this project. The problem was I kept buying more and more Spincycle yarn and had quite a stash of it squirreled away. I kept hoping the more I bought the better my hopes of finding a color that worked better. I think I changed my yarns about 5 times, each time finding a yarn that worked better than the last until I was happy with it. By then I was exhausted, I had spent so much time looking for the “right” yarn that I didn’t really want to knit Shifty anymore. I needed a break (and thankfully took one) and knit other projects. I had been so frustrated struggling with the colors that when I finally had I what I thought would be perfect my heart just wasn’t in it anymore.

Mistake number three - don’t order all new yarns that are “perfect” and expect to go back to your original yarns and be happy with them. After I decided my heart just wasn’t in it and I frogged the first time (maybe it was the second time I can’t remember) I decided to buy all new yarns in colors that were me and in my comfort zone. I’ll leave the rest of that story for part three but needless to say I ended up with two sets of yarn to make Shifty sweaters with, but which one will I choose? Will I even choose either of them, or start all over yet again? The saga continues…