Thursday, May 3, 2007

Rip, Rip, Ripple

And, so, I frogged it. It's interesting--I've put together quite a few afghans, and had no trouble with the color. But, I think the main difference was that I started from scratch, in the yarn store, saying "I need 3 colors." Starting from stash, and wanting as many colors as I could find? Well, I went a bit wacko, and it showed.

Here is my newly-frogged ripple. The yarn balls on the left are the two colors that really killed it. They are going totally away. They were too muted/frosty, for what should really be a mix of spring/warm/clear tones. I didn't like the Caron Light Country Blue from the moment I got it home, but my Random Color Picker insisted, so I went for it. The peach I will discuss below. On the right are (some of) the colors that will go back, in a slightly different order, plus the skein of lt. coral that will replace the peach:


Here is what I am still mulling. I went earlier today and found this light coral yarn. It is very similar in shade to the other yarn (which is a higher grade acrylic--Unger Utopia--that I borrowed from another project). However, when I lay the coral on top of the afghan-in-progress, it sparkles. The peach yarn just sits there, looking boring.

The light is a bit different in these photos, but you can still see how the Utopia looks in the granny square--nice contrast, and it appears as a dark orangy peach. I guess if I've learned anything from this process it's that the more color you work with, the trickier it becomes to keep the project, as a whole, in focus. You can very easily end up with a glaring mistake that doesn't show up until it becomes part of that whole. So, then, you rip, rip, rip-it. :)

4 comments:

Anina said...

Oh dear. I thought that yarn picker might be a little inexperienced...

Judy said...

He has grand ideas, and some are good (like including the majority of the lighter shades of certain colors--pink, coral, lavender, etc). And he was soooooo excited--he even helped me pick the new yarn yesterday. :) But, my mistake was in not scrubbing his choices well enough. Anything that is banned from my ripple is going back to the basement so that he can't find it!!

Ellen Bloom said...

I like the solid colors. It's the vareigated yarn that looks like it doesn't belong.
However, if you want to use the variegated yarn, you should use it more liberally, like every other color change (with solids in-between). Good luck!

Judy said...

It's doesn't show because of the ripping (I ripped 2 rows of the Flower Power, too, but didn't show it in the photo), but it will be repeated after every 5 rows of solid. I have a bunch of it, but it's going to be twin-size (for our inflatable bed, or to take along as an extra blanket to Maine in the summer--which is why I really don't care if it's a bit ugly--it needs to be bright and serviceable), and I want to make sure that I have enough for the repeat, to put 5 rows at the end, as I did at the beginning, and, possibly, to border it. I need to check--I don't think it's available any more, so I can't get more. Stash city! :)