Here’s an idea.

(Can I just take a moment to tell you all how blogging just never gets old? I mean, here I am in my kitchen, getting ready to shift off to LA and anxious to take this project with me, and I can have the opinion of all you interested knitters in minutes? That’s really something. That seriously beats the pants off of following Joe around the house saying “pink or green? Joe? Joe….. is the green too subtle? The pink too bold? Honey? JOE. LOOK AT MY YARN.” For the record, this technique has never been satisfactory. Joe usually just gives up and says he likes the green, and then I accuse him of not even looking at the green and just saying green to get out of talking about yarn and then Joe looks at me like “Yeah. That’s right.” The blog is better.)

The Bleeding Heart Stole is knit from the ends in two pieces, and grafted in the middle. I’m thinking that I should divide the bleeding heart yarn in two equal portions, knit the border end pieces out of my beloved, then switch to a complimentary colour for the middle. (I wonder what the designer would do?) The question is, which colour? I went diving in the stash (much easier since the big toss and reorganize) and came up with a wool/bamboo/nylon yarn from Jennifer. The weight and lustre is same, and I think they could work. Which one? I dunno.

A) Pale pink in almost exactly the same shade as the background pink in my bleeding heart yarn, but is either too woosie-pants washed out or beautifully subtle. I can’t decide which.

B) Green is sort of good. Kind of like the leafy part of a bleeding heart, could be an organic outgrowth of the colorway or way too unrelated to work.

C) Deep pink, sort of like the darker parts of the bleeding hearts, and is either elegantly rich or one step away from being a pair of whore’s panties.

A, B, or C. You pick. I can’t tell, and frankly, neither can Joe.

Yesterday when I was taking knitting pictures in the garden (what?) I held the wool/seacell roving up to a plant to snap a picture, and this is what I saw.

From the second I drew the connection, that became bleeding heart roving, and I was entirely besotted. (I know. Yesterday I was besotted with beads and waves. I still am. I’m a fickle, fickle knitter. Harlot – remember?) I came in, sat at the wheel and was absolutely diligent, until I had this.

Still good. I plied.

Oh, yes. It’s perfect. Perfectly perfect. It’s not quite as intense as the original colours of the flowers, which is good, because I human interpretations of natures intensity often come off as tacky or garish.

Nature is a hussy, and only she can get away with the purple pink combo and still have it be delicate. I love this yarn. It’s a little heavier than a true lace weight, sort of halfway between fingering and lace, and I knew the whole time I was making it exactly what I would do. Exactly.

See that? Kismet. Sure, that pattern calls for about 1100 metres of yarn and I was going to have nowhere near as much as that, but dudes, that was going to be fine, because I don’t really like stoles anyway. I was going to do fewer repeats in all directions, and make it less wide and less long and turn the whole thing into a delicate little scarf. if I made it half as wide and half as long then I would only need 1/4 of the yarn, and that was only 275m. Ha- ha! This 60g (2oz) had to have made that much. I heaved sighs of contentment just thinking of if. After I steamed the yarn, I sat down to wind it into a ball so I could start. It wound up really quickly. Too quickly. So quickly that I felt a funny little feeling that I have learned is the smart part of my brain trying to get my attention. The smart part of my brain was saying “You really need to measure this yarn.” I didn’t argue. I went and got my yarn meter and ran the yarn through.

150m.

Just over half of what I need. Smack me with wet merino and call me stupid. Clearly, the smart part of my brain needs to learn to speak up a little sooner before I get myself all worked up.

There has to be a way that this can still work…