Should have considered that

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.

Inspiredrov2805

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.

Singlesinspwbh2805

Still good. I plied.

Bhyarnins2805

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.

Bleedingheartyarn2805D

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.

Bhstplannot2805

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…

164 thoughts on “Should have considered that

  1. Buy more roving? As I am not a spinner, I don’t know if you can get more of the same. I love bleeding hearts.

  2. Could I possibly be first?
    Anyway, I love the new yarn. I’m not usually into pastels, but that’s gorgeous. Oh, and I’m trying to talk my Toronto-dwelling sister-in-law and niece into going to see you on the 14th. (I thought of cadging a spot on the sofa and being there myself, but family obligations prevent it.)

  3. Aw. Darn. My computer said that there were “0” comments. Filthy little liar.

  4. OK, maybe a lacy neckwarmer is too ironic a phrase. A lacy neck thingie then!

  5. The yarn is just beautiful. I hope you come up with a solution; I just ended up having to order another batch of roving to finish up a project that was short.

  6. Maybe a skinny scarf? Single repeat of the pattern? What a lovely connection to have made 🙂 Brava to you for getting your spinning in. But I still want to see the beads….More beads pics soon?

  7. It’s no consolation, but at least you listened when the smart part of your brain spoke up. Think how much it would have sucked if you had gone on regardless, and run out half-way through. Now you can figure something out, because of course you will! You are The Harlot!

  8. You are right.. There’s GOT to be a way… what about using the same repeats, and just making … anything else! glove kind of thingies, or a smaller neck accent type of scarf… It’s just TOO perfect!

  9. so use the handspun in the centre and use something appropriate as the border, (or vice versa). I’m hohum on stripes, but how about diamonds? You have a large stash that you just organized so surely a suitable yarn must be at hand.
    By the way, I love the syncronicity. Beautiful wool too!

  10. Feeling adventurous? Could the bleeding hearts lace pattern be converted into bleeding hearts lacy socks? The pattern would make a nice sister pattern for your tulip socks.

  11. That yarn is SOOOOO beautiful. Maybe lacy wrist warmers? (it is cold in Canada, no?) so you can look at them while you wear them.

  12. Do the border in ‘bleeding heart’, find a nice coordinating color for the center panel.
    I have often seen sights in nature that inspire my yarn choices. Sometimes I find a yarn that speaks to me, but I don’t know why, I don’t buy it. Later, I see something in nature and realize that was just what the yarn was reminding me of…and then I have to go back and buy the yarn.

  13. That yarn is so lovely. Can you make the pattern work in some sort of jabot? Just long enough to wrap and flip tie–

  14. Use your precious handknit (I loves it! I wants it!) as the heart, and a lesser, commercial yarn in a similar weight for the edges.
    I’ve done that lots of times, when I’ve had only a tiny bit of something precious.

  15. I’d go for a cowl. Or maybe follow KnittingInMind’s suggestion and combine it with a leaf motif. (I’d switch it up, in that case, though, and do the leaves on the outside and the bleeding heart motif for the center.)

  16. I’d swatch one repeat and see how big it was, then unravel it to see how much yarn it took. Then I’d know what the total coverage I could get with the yarn I had and if it would make a reasonable scarf or not. If it wasn’t enough I like the idea of making an insert of bleedingheart inside a larger green motif.
    BTW you have 3/22 of the yardage you’d need for the entire stole

  17. My god, woman – you LISTENED to the voice of reason?? I see the signs of the Apocalypse…
    (but I vote for neckwarmer…)

  18. Unply it and use it as singles. That way, there will be enough yarn and it will be even MORE delicate! So lovely indeed.

  19. That. Roving. Is. Awesome. That blend of colors is so pretty and delicate without being saccharinely deterring. There’s nothing wrong with being ficlke (says the girl with about ten WIPs, some accounted for, some missing).
    You’ve got to come up with something for it. Nothing is unsolvable in knitting.

  20. Ah Stephanie, what am I going to do with you?
    I first found your blog as a crocheter. Since I have watched you make endless pairs of socks, I had to learn to knit and I am in progress on my first pair socks. I am DYING to buy some sock yarn, but we are moving in 4 weeks and I don’t need to spend the money and I don’t need more to move.
    Now you show me spinning and thats what I want to do – right now. Great. So now I want to get the roving (maybe dye it – maybe buy roving that is already dyed) and spin it and ply it and make yarn to make socks.
    Its too much to learn at once!!
    But thank you for being such a great inspiration!!!

  21. Beautiful! Perfect colouring. Is it my imagination (gord knows I’ve got one sometimes) or does the roving look a bit sheeplike in the first picture?
    Remember way back when in bookbookbook, “Knitting Rules”, you talked about a ridiculously expensive skein of silk that you turned into a beautiful lace-ended scarf by being smarter than the average bear (or something). When you ended up with a mere couple of inches left (not enough to calculate the cost of the leftover) after grafting the end on, you danced around and showed the cat (Millie?), who was not as impressed as a knitter would be. Could you do that??? I couldn’t, but I’ll bet you can!
    Can’t wait to see the finished result – and the beaded scarf too please?

  22. What a lovely group of kismet happenings! The yarn is beautiful! Can you get more roving? I think the neck warmer thingy would be wonderful, if not, or a lacy scarf. If you could find exactly the right green, it could be combined with that yarn in some way. Whatever you decide, that yarn will translate to an amazing project. :O)

  23. The yarn is amazing, and I’m not a pastel kind of girl, either.
    you will find a wonderful way to use this yarn, though, because you are the Harlot Goddess!

  24. Could you do the lace pattern in the round and make a smoke ring or cowl?
    According to ravelry cowls are mega-cool right now (mega-warm? Oh well, you get my drift).

  25. It’s gorgeous. So gorgeous, that it can make up it’s own mind what it is to be when it grows up. Maybe it wants to live next to compatible fiber bits in a community, like a scarf, or be made into lovely hand warmers, with one repeat of the pattern on the wrist…something like that yarn…it defines itself.

  26. Crap – I should learn to read others’ comments first (then I would know cowl was already suggested). And I thought I was so clever for the suggestion 🙂

  27. Well, I don’t have any ideas for the yarn, but at least your post helped me identify the flowers in our backyard! I spotted them a few weeks ago and had no idea what they’re called, and now I know. Thanks! (and good luck figuring out your bleeding hearts project)

  28. Find another pattern called ‘bleeding hearts’ something, and adapt it!!! Maybe you need a soft doily? (By the way, I’m totally infatuated with that color… I could look at that picture w/the flowers all day…)

  29. Maybe its all about the gauge. Maybe larger needles and a lace pattern will give you something that is the size of the scarf you want, with half the wool. As a spinner, I know you will never be able to duplicate that again. You can, however, spin some pure white and mix it in as you knit it somehow? Lovely colors.

  30. There must be a way. Must be. Because that pattern is gorgeous, and that yarn is gorgeous, and they belong together. Maybe even skinnier than you’d planned? And if your yarn is a bit heavier than called for, that might make it enough for something long enough? This is quite a cliffhanger…

  31. Is there more of that luscious roving available somewhere?
    Otherwise, I’d say – accent yarn. Find some coordinating color and use this as the outer rounds or something.

  32. Having knit a lace scarf for each woman in my church congregation over 18 months’ time… 150m. Okay, that’s enough for about 25 stitches or so across on size 8 needles with that weight of yarn (what I’d be using at my loose gauge) to get you a nice length scarf, 31 stitches if you want it shorter. You can single-crochet around a smallest-size hair elastic to make a tie to hold the scarf together in front if there’s not enough length to actually tie it (or for those done in too heavy a weight yarn and you don’t want a bulky tying-together, but that’s irrelevant here).
    You can do it. Go for it. It’s gorgeous yarn.

  33. Unply it?
    Then you’d have 300m of singles…
    Granted, it would be a pain in the butt to do, but you could!

  34. That is absolutely gorgeous yarn. Your flowers are also quite lovely. I really must plant some bleeding hearts in my garden. As for your dilemma bleeding heart fingerless mitts?

  35. Given the cowl virus that’s sweeping the knitblogs, is there anything else to do but submit? Congratulations on spinning the only yarn ever to make me pant after pastels.

  36. Bleeding Hearts COWL!!! I know others have said it, just wanted to cast my vote.

  37. Oh, I lurve bleeding hearts – such a beautiful flower (and yarn).
    You can view it as fickle but as that is pretty much my constant state of being and I am all too hung up on dignity, I prefer to look at it as being in a state of accepting the organic manifestation of nature’s ever flowing stream. It may sound better, or not, but it is at least befuddling enough to distract those who would judge so I can run away!

  38. Oh, Crap. And it was so gorgeous, too. I’m sure sombody will think of something. Maybe a super skinny scarf? You know, an ornimental thing? (I love bleeding hearts, and the yarn, you are soooo lucky!) Or, can you get more roving?

  39. make a two colored scarf.
    or just stick yarn onto US 15 needles, say 10 stitches or so, and just knit until you run out.
    works for me!!

  40. Very pretty!
    Bleeding heart cowl, socks (just the ankle parts and switch to something else for the heels and feet), fingerless mitts, etc.

  41. OK. How about something for the home? That is, not wearable (except maybe late at night, when you might be given to wearing lampshades on your head or some such thing). Oh, hey, how about a lampshade? Or, someone just gave me the loveliest wedding present: It’s a knitted table runner that doubles (when you double it) as a trivet. Then you can have it about to fondle at a moment’s notice.

  42. Oh dang, that sucks royally.
    Before you got to the bad part though, I was thinking, me too, me too. Because a few months ago, there was this thing here called Knitting in the Heartland, and there was TONS of yarn for sale, and I met this lady who owns a sheep farm about 45 minutes away, and she spins the fleece and sells the yarn in varying weights. Thing is, she usually doesn’t blend the fleeces, so when you buy yarn, it’s called whatever the sheep it came from is named. I fell in love with the colors from her sheep Blossom, but she didn’t have any fingering weight with her that day, and we made plans for me to drive up there the next weekend with my boys. Not only did I get to buy my loverly Blossom yarn, I got to meet Blossom personally and thank her for her generous donation of fleece. Then I came home and promptly searched Ravelry for an appropriate shawl/stole/scarf thing, and guess what I found … a shawl named … wait for it … Blossom. And it calls for just a little less that what I have in yardage, so I’ll just do a few more repeats or a bigger border or something. If you’re ever in Lawrence, KS, look her up, her name’s Barbara and she runs Maggie’s Farm, named after her dog. You can go to http://www.maggiesfarm-ks.com too.
    My bet on that yarn though…either find more roving or split that yarn in 2 and use it as a border for a scarf. One of those where you use something else for the center portion, then join the end color in for the ends. Does that make any sense? Where you do a provisional cast on and work towards one end, then when you got to the border part use your Bleeding Heart yarn, or just half of it. Then undo the provisional cast on and do the other half the same way.

  43. I know others have mentioned this, but it just seemed so perfect when I thought of it — so I vote, too, for using the lovely Bleeding Hearts yarn in the center of the scarf, and then using a lovely leafy green (one of your favorite colors, after all!) to do a knitted-on leafy border, using Anne’s leafy motif or another one. I think it would be spectacular, and echo the garden effect of those lovely columns of blooms against the green leaves of the shrub.
    I also congratulate you on listening to the small voice of niggling reality. Must be the upcoming birthday being a good influence….

  44. Apparently cowls are the new scarves, so I’m sure with a few more tweaks the shawl could be turned into a cowl pattern. I love how the yarn turned out! v. pretty.

  45. Beautiful, beautify yarn!!
    Probably already suggested, but you could unply it and re-ply with a strand of something else. If you have any cobweb, you’d end up with something even closer to laceweight and about 300 meters. Or spin up a natural white single. Or some roving in similar colors. Unplying isn’t so bad; use your ball winder(s) and maybe Joe to run one of them while you run the wheel and the 2nd winder or a spool (core from TP or paper towel works great). After all, he can’t run away very quickly right now! How’s he doing, anyway?

  46. 1) LOVELOVELOVELOVE that roving and the colors and the way it spun up and plied and all of it.
    2) Yay for listening to your little voice now rather than 3/4s of the way through the plied yarn.
    3) My suggestion is unply it or find a complimentary yarn to be a border or center. Or make a smaller project – hat, gloves, skinny scarf, socks… something you would wear in the dead of winter to remind yourself that spring is just around the corner. Maybe?

  47. Can you get more of the roving? Can one of your dyer friends duplicate the colors? Can you unply it and reply with a coordinating solid color? (Okay, maybe that’s not reasonable. I haven’t tried it myself and I’m not that experienced at spinning.)
    The whole time I was reading, I kept thinking about Anne’s stole, too! That yarn really needs to be made into her design.

  48. Ooh ooh Mr. Kotter – I know! Vow to ALWAYS buy more roving! More is always better. Obviously your parsimony is a barrier to your happiness! More!

  49. Seaman’s Scarf. You can use the stitch pattern from the Bleeding Heart Stole (and even the lace edging).
    Soft, lovely and feminine from Fall – Spring when your Bleeding Hearts bloom.

  50. Dudes, 150 m is so completely not enough for socks. (unless as somebody said it’s just the cuff, and there’s another color for the feet … that would work). Or one short sock, maybe. Steph has little feet (I think she’s said) but unless she’s no older than 5 or 6 years old, nobody has feet quite that little.
    Choice #1: Get more of that roving. And if that isn’t possible – choice #2, supplement with some other yarn.
    Anyway – it is indeed extremely gorgeous, and I luuuves bleeding hearts. I have an enormous bush that I can see out my kitchen window and it makes me very, very happy.
    Oh, that leads to choice #3 – send it to me. 🙂 I’ve been a good knitter, at least most of the time, and my birthday is next week. 🙂 OK I’m just joking. Just make something pretty that we can all drool over.

  51. That was an awesome roving! I like how you spun it too. I think you could either unply it or get more roving that goes with it and spin it the same. Or you could just make an awesome lacy headband and matching necklace-thing.

  52. Hmmm…what can you make with that?…
    Baby socks?
    OOOooo! Or how about a pretty little bleeding hearts hankie that you can use to dramatically wave goodbye to your family the next time you have to board a plane?
    Okay, not so much, huh? It’s a shame really. It’s really quite amazing how well all of that came together. Can you get more?
    Good luck!
    M

  53. Unply it with two Handspindles and your daughters´ help. Then dry the singles with a weight.
    Knit carefully and relish every moment!
    It IS worth the trouble!!!

  54. Well, you have enough to make it one third as wide and one third as long, which would be in neck warmer/cowl territory at about 7.6 x 28 inches. (I think that’s about 19 x 71cm?)

  55. Hmmm… ways to make it work….
    Buy more roving?
    Use the lace pattern from the stole to make something smaller, like a cowl or fingerless mitts?
    Make a center panel of the bleeding hearts stole in your hand spun and then use a coordinating yarn to create enough ‘edging’ to make it the size you want?
    umm. that’s all I got.

  56. “I know. Yesterday I was besotted with beads and waves. I still am. I’m a fickle, fickle knitter. Harlot – remember?” This just cracked me up.
    Everyone’s already come up with the suggestions I was going to make (more roving, contrasting or coordinating color, alternate sock project), so I’ll just say . . . whatever you do, it will undoubtedly be a wonderful Harlot original that will keep us all entertained.

  57. Bleeding hearts are my favorite flowers. You know, that lovely handspun would make some beautiful bleeding hearts fingerless gloves…

  58. The kismet thing has to be followed. If more similar roving is to be had, perhaps you could spin it and alternate the two every other row. good luck.

  59. I’ve been looking for DAYS for a bleeding hearts pic for my desktop. Yours are perfect.

  60. I love the yarn. The colors are trully amazing. I hope you find a way to still do your stole/scarf thing.

  61. This sounds SO familiar to me. It seems all the rovings I buy are 4-ounces and no matter HOW thin I spin it, I never have enough to make the projects I want to knit. I think there are some kind of evil roving-gnomes (not to be confused with the Travelocity.com *roaming* gnome, who’s a keen sorta guy) who steal yardage or something. Evil, evil little gnomies. 😛

  62. Oooooooh!!! Pretty! I like the fingerless mitts idea, so in the dead of winter your hands can wear a little bit of spring.

  63. These are all great suggestions. To add one more to the pile. What about finding or dyeing another equal weight roving in the soft base pink color that is predominant? Spin, and then switch out every other row? That way you will still get the soft lovely color subtely of the (oh yes incrediby stunning) first roving without changing the overall bleeding heart effect. Good luck!

  64. Gorgeous. And perfect. So, does it really need to be half as wide and half as long? That’s gotta be a pretty good sized scarf. I think you could get away with less width – maybe a quarter of the original width?? Then you’d be golden.

  65. I have never spun yarn and really don’t have a desire. I am in awe, however, when I see the beautiful results. The color is amazing. A garden of yarn.

  66. You don’t have to knit with it – just put it in a lovely vase or bowl and stare at it for a while. It is delicious!

  67. Ummm. Maybe the yarn is destined to be Loved-as-is. You know, the yarn that you can’t find a pattern befitting it and it would be gone if you knit something with it. I have 2 oz. of qiviut (a gift from my daughter) that lives on my desk. I just pet and hug it, ’cause the Right One hasn’t come along yet. Well, it’s a thought. Baa-yew-tee-ful yarn!

  68. Bummer! Let me know if you come up with a good solution, ’cause I had almost the identical experience with some beautiful merino/Tencel that was going to be a Morning Surf Scarf. Of course, I wasn’t smart enough to listen to my little voice, so there were several days of pathetic blog posts saying “Somehow this doesn’t seem like it will be enough yarn”….until, of course, it was not. I frogged, started again with a few less repeats (measuring? we don’t need no stinking measuring!) and evenutally got to the same dismal place, at which point I frogged, reskeined the yarn and wrapped it up for one day when I’m feeling really masochistic!

  69. I’m a huge fan of Anne and her designs, and yeah, love the bleeding hearts.. what a perfect match of yarn and design…(looking at the photo of the fibre and bleeding hearts I nearly wept)… what to do? ask Anne. She’d probably be more than happy to do a bit of brainstorming with you… she’s nice that way, seriously, she’s a Very Nice Lady. :^D

  70. “Steamed the yarn” that is new to me… if you get a moment in one of your blogs, can you pls explain to me how and why you steam your yarn? I’ve heard of washing it, beating it, hanging it to dry with weights on it, but steaming is totally new to me — and sounds far nicer than all the above mentioned methods of yarn prep. It’s lovely btw.

  71. You just have to spin more yarn, the whole thing is just too perfect to give into not having enough. Or buy 2 more rovings and….nevermind.
    Thanks again for letting us know that you to are human and do all those silly things we do.

  72. not being familiar with the pattern, but knowing the way most knit patterns work … why not just figure out what the repeat is and work that part for the width you’d want? use a different yarn that is simular in size (yes I know you should really use the yarn you are making it with, but you’ve only got 150m) and then undo the swatch to measure how much yarn it takes …. then you can figure out how much you will need for your scarf idea.

  73. half as long as the stole and 1/4 as wide…
    so pretty. Learning to spin is definitely on my “to do” list.

  74. That stinks. I second pixie’s idea of knitting the singles. Congrats on the bleeding hearts, though! Spring has officially sprung!

  75. Well, I’m no more clever than any of the commenter’s before me. But… “nature is a hussy…” cracked me up. How true that is. I wonder why…

  76. I had a great idea . . . but it still took too much yarn. What about a Bleeding Hearts handkercheif that you could pin at your collar with a pretty shawl pin or cameo? A head scarf? It would look lovely with your beautiful brown hair.
    And that is amazing roving/yarn. If you can buy/beg/borrow/steal/special order more, I would heartily encourage you to do so, regardless of the cost. It’s one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen . . .

  77. I am guessing (could be wrong here) you have some natural roving. Perhaps, you could use the Bleeding Hearts as an accent to some natural colored roving. Of course, previous posters suggestions to some how procure more of the Bleeding Hearts roving might be a better answer.

  78. there is a girl baby just
    waiting to be born who will
    gurgle and giggle and turn
    toes down in delight when
    wrapped up in this lovely yarn
    perhaps some of your lovely photos
    would make lovely cards ?

  79. I’m a bad knitter. I looked at the picture of the roving in the bleeding hearts and thought, oh I really need to find a place in the yard to plant bleeding hearts. They make me soooo happy.
    The yarn is lovely though.

  80. That yarn is gorgeous! I too think a cowl would be lovely.

  81. Oh, that’s so sad! The only solution I can think of is that you send it to me.

  82. Remember those reallllly skinny ties from the 80’s (to counterbalance the hair?)?

  83. Those photos of the bleeding hearts and roving are soooooooo beautiful…art all to themselves…really lovely..thank you..

  84. I think that it’s just life’s way of telling you to spin some more. That’s what I think at least. But it is a lovely yarn. I’m not really a fan of pink and I like it. Seriously pretty.

  85. I’ll have to go along with the cowl suggestions, the one in Knitty with beads! If you’re just not a cowl person, you need to get more of that roving. It would make a very pretty lingerie something.

  86. oh yes, there HAS to be a way!
    beautiful yarn . . it’s perfect (inf act, the original proposal for that piece was in a nice fat merino laceweight from fearless fibers that is more like fingering weight; it was eventually knit into twinings)

  87. Ravelry shows a Bleeding Hearts dishcloth and socks, beside the stole/scarf. The yarn is really lovely, I hope it doesn’t end up back in the stash…. any possibility of more roving?

  88. Buy more roving, if it’s available (and who wouldn’t make extra roving available to The Yarn Harlot?)
    or make socks – whoever mentioned that above – good idea!

  89. I think I’d use the beautiful yarn to make a keyhole scarf…don’t you think you have enough to make one using the Bleeding Heart pattern…worth a try…

  90. Maybe a cute little bag or coin purse? Just an idea. You’d have to line it of course…. Does Ken owe you a favour?

  91. The yarn is too beautiful to add another color. I’d love to see a springtime scarf for cooler days.

  92. Bleeding Heart Yarn? Not so bad. I’ve got some roving named Fuzzy Lettuce and some named Disemboweled Cow. Both named by my faithful blog readers.

  93. Green.
    I like the other way round, though. Meaning, sweetie handspun in the center and border in green. It may require to completely toss up the way it is made, but, green edge just seems more natural for me. Maybe it’s only me.

  94. i’m weeping with envy. my momma always called that flower hearts bursting with love. But just think, you haven plenty of that beautiful yarn for Branching Out, strikingly similar to the pattern you choose.

  95. I feel bound to post due to the over whelming guilt of not telling you 12 miles is to long to walk for a beer way back in march. So here goes…I think you should choose a different yarn all together and save your newly spun yarn. Why? if the yarn you spun is just not enough I think compromising your original vision is just that, compromising, Ask yourself would you truly be satisfied with that lovely pattern off set by another color that doesn’t immediately say this HAS TO BE IT…. Besides you now have at least 200 more people imputing 200 more personal preferences that would make anyone second guess any choice that you end up making. But if your heart is set on A,B, or C personal preference #201 is for…. a hell I say just grab a Beer.

  96. (I must say: two comments from me in 15 minutes?, at 5 a.m.? I must be avoiding work. /sigh)
    Lovely lovely yarn. Pretty flowers. I have to agree with the last commenter – are you compromising or in love with the idea of the middle in another yarn? (Personally, I love the pale pink in your next post and think it will work.) You need to consider that. (Look at my email address. I have experience with these things.)

  97. Ideas:
    – Lace neckerchief (like those pretty things french women wear)
    – lace headband
    – fingerless mitts or lace cuffs (maybe with pink beads)

  98. “Look, Mommy! She has a big fat furry pink tarantula in her yard!” – Eleanor, age 7 (I am trying to introduce my children to knitting blogs & this is what I get…)

  99. I like all three choices with the hand spun. Would a lovely stripe work? large bit of hannd spun small bit of green and pink and large bit of rose. I think this would totally work. Then I am a bit bold.

  100. I’d go for the green first, then the lighter pink…. don’t care for the darker pink combination. That’s my 2 cents worth….

  101. I vote for the light pink. Don’t ask me why I’m going for subtle, I usually don’t. Actually, I think I’m still trying to recover from the beaded socks pictures. Oh my god.

  102. Cowls are the new IT fashion item, no?
    People have mentioned un-plying it. Is that even possible? Then it would take it back down to the true lace weight you needed…

  103. I vote A. It’s such a delicate pattern, I’m afraid the darker colors would be too much contrast with the beloved.

  104. C. It complements instead of being matchy. Usually I’d go for the green but it just doesn’t do anything for me in this case.

  105. At first I thought the dark pink, but I think the best bet is to use it by itself for something else. It’s too beautiful.

  106. Well, here’s a (possibly crazy) idea: Start with the amazingly beautiful Bleeding Heart yarn, knit out about 50m in pattern, add in the pink, alternate pink and BH yarns (2 rows and switch – as if you were trying to even out the shades in hand-painted skeins) for the next 50m of the BH, finsh that half of the stole/scarf/lacy nothing. Start the next half with the green (or stay with the pink, if you really want to), knit about the same amount as is solidly BH on the other side, add in the remaining BH and knit until the handspun runs out, graft, & voila! The Bleeding Heart yarn gets a bit of solo time at one end then blends through the pink and into the leafy green to hold the theme together. Using just one of the extra colo(u)rs would, perhaps, be a afer choice, but the idea of the flowers fading into the foliage kind of appeals at the moment….

  107. My favorite thing to do with small skeins is to make hand/wristwarmers – someone may have already suggested this, but what about using the bleeding heart pattern on the back of the hand?

  108. I have absolutely nothing useful to give you, except massive amounts of sympathy. I have some deep black-purple yarn from Rabbitch that I SO wanted to make into a vest for me. Knit a swatch with the 60yd piece and measured it; I have precisely 3/4 the yardage I’d need.
    RATS! Although perhaps I used stronger words…

  109. If your heart is set on making this particular project, I’d go with the green (of course, all is green)…. but, I’d like to see you make a little something special out of it alone. The other 2 colors don’t do much for your special yarn – the light pink looks as though you tried to match but didn’t make it, and the darker plum washes out your special handspun. Just my opinion. Good luck!

  110. I think that the lighter pink will show off the variations in the handspun without overwhelming it.

  111. I’m a new spinner and was wondering why and how you steamed the yarn. Was it to clean the yarn or to set the twists. When I was taught to spin, no one even mentioned steaming the yarn.

  112. I think a nice creamy white, the color of freshwater pearls would be good. The colors in the yarn are so subtle they don’t need competition from more color. Beautiful colorway.

  113. This yarn would be lovely in the ‘Beech Wood’ neck warmer on Ravelry. Free pattern. I did it in Jitterbug, (soulknitting on Ravelry) and I love it. Or maybe ‘Branching Out’ from Knitty? Do you have enough for that?

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