There's always a 'but'

I really have the crochet bug at the moment. I have stalled in the middle of a crocheted jumper, simply because it will not fit properly until I have lost a few more pounds....which shouldn't take that long, really, but it has been enough to halt me with simply one sleeve left to finish.

In the meantime I am crocheting a blanket...or should I say, another blanket. I think that makes four in various stages of creation. The top and this blanket are both by Doris Chan.  I think Doris designs some beautiful things. But...and there is a  but... her 'crochet mind' works differently from mine. That means that  when I am following her instructions for garments I do a fair bit of frogging (that's ripping out completed work to the uninitiated ;0). As you can imagine, this is very, very frustrating  But...because there is a but....when my crochet mind aligns with Doris' crochet mind, I can really appreciate the elegance of the design. And here I mean not the finished garment, but by the actual design of the garment. She has some sophisticated solutions for design problems  The kind that appear to be simple solutions but in reality have a lot of thought behind them.

But...back to the blanket. I had in my mind jewel colours separated by a pale grey. A somewhat mottled grey, not solid, but icy-white with the edge taken off with wisps of cool grey. I did not want white. I did not want cream. The yarn also had to be acrylic. Again for the uninitiated, it is generally a bad idea to mix different yarn bases together since it affects the laundering process. As the blanket was mainly acrylic, for    hard-wearing indestructibility,   the yarn for which I was seeking also needed to be acrylic. But ...because there is a but...I simply could not find a grey acrylic yarn which even came close to what I had imagined. There wasn't even a wool yarn which came close to what I had imagine. But...you know where this is going, right?...because ....I am impatient I thought I would grab some superwash yarn  which would 'just do.' Well, it just won't. The 'superwash' label means that it can in theory be machine washed. Not that I  planned to, but this at least meant that when I hand washed it I shouldn't have too much of a problem with it. It wouldn't behave wildly differently from the acrylic. But man...it sucked, big time. Sucked all that beautiful jewel-toned vibrancy right outta that blanket. And that just wouldn't do.

I hand craft because I love both the process and the end result. There is no point in continuing with something if you don't love it. What I am asking myself is: Why the hell didn't I listen to that voice in my head telling me that the grey yarn 'wouldn't do'? Voices in the head are worrying. But when they  are giving crafty advice they are generally best listened to. I've been here before. I'll probably end up back in this place again. Hopefully not for a while.

I went back to the shop. Took a long, long time looking for a cream yarn. Again, somewhat surprised (nay, amazed) that  I could not even find cream 'baby yarn.' (How cool is that, eh? Knitting a baby.) Right next to it was some grey yarn which came fairly close to what I had imagined. But I decided not to take the risk. I didn't want to spend any more money on even one ball of yarn which might not be right. So cream it is. Again it is superwash wool. This time, though, it is very soft superwash wool, much closer in 'hand' to that of the acrylic, so I am also much happier with that.  I bought one ball of the yarn and rushed home and completed a few motifs to see how it would look. Here it is:

I think you would agree, the cream is much, much better. It looks very white here, but trust me, it is cream.

The blanket pattern, should you be interested, is the All Star Blanket, Doris Chan. Again, the design of the star motif is elegant. Just what I expect from Doris.

And the grey yarn? I have a short-sleeve jumper pattern all lined up. I plan to wear it with a  scarf  at the neck, to deal with the colour-sucking properties of the yarn.