Finding the Right Thing

After feeling yucky most of the week, I know it showed in my lackluster posts, I finally feel almost human again. On the way to feeling human, I played, but just a little.

Do you remember this yarn?  Its a lovely wool and silk that just has the most pleasing rough tussah look to it.  Not at all a fancy silk, just a comfy cozy down home look to it, the kind you can wear anywhere, with anything.

There were a couple of problems with it that made choosing a pattern difficult.  One was it multi coloured ways.  It was going to be prone to pooling.  I really didn't need something so pretty to pool.  The other is the very nature of its multi colouring.  Multis hide any pattern you put into them.  You have to choose with care to match yarn and pattern.

Another problem was that I kept being drawn to triangle shapes and in winter, with heavy coats and caps and scarves, the last thing I need to tuck into my coat is the shawl collar of a triangle shawl.  But I could not find another shaping that spoke to me.  

I started knitting different things with it a couple of times.  Fortunately it is a sturdy yarn and shows nary a sign of wear.   

Sunday afternoon, I began to knit a triangle 'shoulder shawl in Syrian stitch' (pompously named, the pattern originates in 1891) from Victorian Lace Today.  Its a simple repeating v that starts from a single stitch.  Its garter stitch.  

Looks simple enough for any knitting funk, but right about v number 2, I realized, this isn't doing it for me, and put it down.  It just was not speaking a language I wanted to hear.  

I really like this simple repeating pattern.  This rather stiff, crunchy looking yarn benefits from that repeating 'v's.  The rows of yarn overs are going to make it be soft, giving it a drape that just isn't there in the yarn. But I hated the triangle.

And then I had a brain wave.

I was thinking about all the other yummy yarn I have and that I've seen some really really great crochet things on Ravelry lately, sweaters with style and shape.  Maybe thinking about crochet is what made me think of Parul.

Parul is the brainwave.  It is a rather nifty little thing designed to take advantage of 3 small skeins of yarn.  It is designed so that you use up all your yarn.  You do this with the help of a little math after the first ball has been crocheted and then you cruise on to completion making long lovely winged ends that drape majestically around your shoulders.

Its not the crochet nature of Parul that I need, it is the shape!    That v shape will be perfect for this pattern, indeed it will mimic the crocheted form almost to a t.  It takes out the weight of the triangle at the neckline, making a lovely v shape to tuck close to your neck and leaves long elegant ends to drape around your shoulders.  It mimics Shawl and stole and scarf.

That shape is going to be perfect for this project.

I'm sorry.  I need an extra day to work on this thing.  Do you think my boss will go for  a 'deeply inspired by knitting' compulsion excuse and let me stay home from work?  No  Me either.

Sigh.