When a Plan Comes Together

I love it when a plan comes together.  That line wasn't a cliche till it was used in a movie so it almost has cliche status, but it works for me.  I do love it when a plan comes together.  

I've talked about the things that attract me to a yarn before and one of the things that most draws me in is something that hints to old while being firmly rooted in the new.  Classic Elite Alpaca Silk is one of those yarns.  Or is sometimes.  

I had 3 skeins in my stash, figuring that 1200 metres would be plenty for whatever my little heart desired.  I loved its soft gray heathery goodness. I loved the depth and dimensions of its colours.  That was fine till I met Bridgewater.  When I met Bridgewater, I knew I would need more.

And more was not so easy to come by.  I ended up buying a 4th skein on the hopes that it would be close enough to match. I figured with the heather in the yarn, alternating dyelots would be fine.  

As you can see here, the dyelots were dramatically different.  One with a certain something, the single new skein, flat. No depth.  No dimension in the way the yarn took the dye.  I tried it anyway.   

You can see the colour changes.  Its even more dramatic in real life.  One yarn has a gray cast and the other a taupe cast (taupe is a difficult colour).  It was less than pleasing and the only way it was headed was to the frog pond.  I looked at other yarns I have in my large lace stash but there was nothing that said 'I want to be Bridgewater' except for  an alpaca lace weight out of Saskatchewan with only 1300 yards.  Too bad little Alpaca.

Occasionally, I would check Ravelry, searching for that single skein I needed as if I searched for a lost sheep.  And then one day, Mary found her sheep!  Right colour way.  Be still my heart.  Right dyelot.  Oh my.  Seller who agreed to send it to Canada! Wowsa.  I was jumping over the moon.

It arrived safe yesterday and is really quite perfect.  One full skein and a part of another.  It is really quite perfect. There was always that niggling little worry that maybe the dyelot will say it is the same, but won't actually be the same, you know what I mean?  And more yarn than I need, but hey, I will take it!

Thank you wheatfran.  You have made an obsession possible.  

Bridgewater is a fairly simple shawl, but this particular dyelots depth and heathery goodness will make it the most wonderful simple thing ever.