Whoops

Well, while I’m marginally closer to finishing the project I was working on, I did not manage to avoid starting something completely different. I’ve joined the Mystery Laceweight Shawl Crochet-Along! (The group is on Ravelry but the directions are not, so everyone can play. Although I believe the wait time for new Ravelry users is down to one day, so if you’ve been wanting to sign up but were intimidated by the wait list, wait no more! Also, if you want to play along and don’t want to see it, shoo! I’m going to post a picture that’s a bit ‘spoilery.’) I’ve never made a shawl, something with laceweight, been in a crochet (or knit, for that matter) along, and I’ve certainly never done a mystery one before. I cheated a little: I didn’t join until after I’d seen a few people get through the first clue. It was pretty, and I already had a G hook out, and I realized that it would be perfect for this overdyed cashmere – although I had no idea how much yardage I had. (The shawl is supposed to need 700.) Although, looking at that blog post, it looks like I will NOT have that much. I wrote that I dyed 850 yds, and then I doubled it (so, about 425) because it was so thin and fragile. Hmm. That dampens my enthusiasm somewhat.

Oh, well. For picture,

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Click the picture to see the first clue fully revealed! Intriguing, right? I guess I have a few options to deal with the yarn issue. One: Don’t make a full-blown shawl. Not a bad option, I’m not a huge fan of full sized shawls, anyway. The downside is that this is a Mystery pattern. I don’t know enough to make radical design alterations at this point. So, I could Two: unravel what I’ve done, separate the strands and work singly instead of doubled. This would have the benefit of making the finished project even thinner and lacier (possibly prettier?), give me sufficient yardage for the project, etc. Downside? Ack! Not only undo what I’ve already done, but unravel that whole spool and separate it onto two?? I’m almost sure that in some places I’ve spliced both strands together when mending breaks. That would mean cutting and re-splicing around them – not difficult, just adding a new layer of complexity to the process. Third option: I have a lot of that cashmere left, just not dyed. I could try to dye some more to finish with. 😕 I don’t feel that’s the best option.

I think that I’m going to swatch with a single strand of cashmere and see how it looks. Then I’ll know better whether option two is worth the hassle…