Remember the baby star-ghan, thwarted by my yarn shortage?
I decided a few weeks ago that I wanted to finish it. It was definitely too small without any additional yarn, so I went to my local Walmart in search of another skein of blue Red Heart Soft Baby. Unfortunately, the first Walmart I went to was completely out of blue, and there was a problem at the second one. I snagged the first skein of blue I came across and was about to chuck it into the cart when I actually looked at it. The yarn was clearly, clearly not the same color. I peered at it suspiciously, snorted at the ‘No Dye Lot’ tag (I’ve heard that before), and checked the color. Powder Blue. That’s what I had, right? The yellow yarn had still been encased in a ball band marking it as Powder Yellow, but the blue had been bandless. Besides, when I bought the yarn for Max’s baby things (more than two years ago and several states away) I just bought the blue and the yellow baby yarn that they had in stock. Walmart only carries a limited colorway – you know, one solid, one variegated yellow, one solid, one variegated blue, one solid, one variegated pink…you know. But if I could tell without a side-by-side comparison that the blues were different, there was no way on earth that it would blend in politely.
I stood there for a few minutes, contemplating my options, and reluctantly grabbed a skein of white with a vague idea of a cloudy border. When faced with the complete breakdown of your plan, fudge a fix and turn it into a design element, right? The irony of the situation is that I had stopped by Michael’s not twenty minutes earlier and hadn’t even thought to see whether they had the yarn I needed (do they carry Red Heart? I’m almost sure they do). Oh, well.
Anyway, to wrap up the dye-lot issue, I checked the Coats and Clark website when I got home, and it appears that my yarn was Sky Blue rather than Powder Blue (which would explain the obviously different coloring). I wish I’d known when I made Max’s baby ripple afghan that they made a paler blue: it’s pink, yellow and blue striped, and the blue is a jarringly different hue than the (powder) yellow and (powder) pink. (Powder blue would probably have matched beautifully.) But as I said, Walmart only carries one blue.
I sulked quietly to myself for a little while about changing the design (I do like to have things my own way, especially in terms of artistic direction) but I made myself get to work on it, and I have to say that it turned out nicely. Even if I still think that just blue with appliqued stars would have been cleaner, visually. Judge for yourself:
I will be posting a pattern for the star appliques – when I tried to find some, they were all far too gappy to be used attractively on a darker color (like the blue) – and I’m going to look into posting directions for the afghan. Because the underlying structure is not mine (Beth’s Little Star, remember?), I want to be careful not to step on copywritten toes.
long time lurker, I *think* this is my first time commenting…
I LOVE what you did with the star afghan! It is adorable – I’ll have to add that to my ever expanding “to do” list.
LOVE your version of the starghan and am waiting to see the star applique pattern and how you did the cloudy border! I do a lot of blankets for babies new to our “submarine” family so I think this would be fun to do, Maybe even to do the blue for water, white for sky and then applique submarines. Great work and congrats on your baby to be! (I’m a new mommy for the 2nd time too!)
I think it’s really nice with a white border!
What a cute blanket! I love your addition of the appliques, and your cloudy border is very clever!
I’m newer to crocheting – how did you do the white cloudy border? By the way – I just purchased your llama pattern and can’t wait to start it – VERY cute!!!
Love this afghan! I have several friends and relatives with babies right now who would love this! Where you did you get the pattern?
Melissa
I 😀 LOVE 😀 your version even more than the original. You inspired me to get the pattern and I am currently working on it for a friend’s baby. I’m working it in a teal green base with veregated pink, blue, and white strand (I think it’s red heart – I bought it years ago because I especially liked the color). Mine is coming out great too. I can’t wait to see your star pattern.