Friday, January 30, 2009

Down the Autumn Arbor (Woolen) Rabbit Hole

OK, woah. I had a thing going. I was on a roll! A new post every day for what, three weeks!?! That has to be some kind of record!

But you wanna know what happened? I fell down the rabbit hole. Totally and completely. That Anne Hanson must add some powerful stuff to her patterns, let me tell you. I have succumbed to the magic that is the Autumn Arbor Stole. The wonder of the pattern combined with the beauty of the yarn is so strong that I knit too much.

Yes, sadly, I was only supposed to do 7 repeats on the first side before starting over and doing 7 repeats on the second side. (The two identical halves are then grafted together in the middle.) But for some reason I just kept on knitting and knitted up 8 pattern repeats before I glanced at the pattern to make sure I was on track. Oops!

I'm not going to worry about it too much. For one thing, I'm 5'10" so even though I'm knitting the "tall" size, I'm not going to object if I have more length than the pattern specifies. (Although...that would really only make sense if I wore the stole vertically, since I'll probably be able to wrap the thing around my body at least three times when it's finished.) But whatever...it's all about proportion, right?

The only thing is that there was one tiny knot in what I can only guess was the middle of the skein. That knot was...you guessed it...right after the 7th repeat. So if that was the middle of the skein, then I won't have enough yarn to do 8 repeats on the second side and I'll have to rip back the first side, splice the yarn together, blah blah blah. But I'm totally not going to worry about that right now. This stole is coming out so beautifully and the yarn is so lovely that I don't care about anything else. I highly recommend this pattern to anyone, and I definitely recommend purchasing the kit from The Woolen Rabbit. This yarn is to die for. Seriously.

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In other news, I recently found my way to a new knitting blog through a comment. It looks like it will be a nice read so I'm looking forward to future posts. The blogger said in her first post that the first person to comment on her blog would get a necklace from her Etsy shop...free! Well, I was that lucky commenter, and her necklace arrived yesterday. I can't tell you how pretty this necklace is! I'm very excited about it, and it's hanging next to my computer so I can see it every day (until I wear it out, of course). Thank you, Julie, for such a lovely gift!

7 comments:

Jacey said...

The pattern looks divine in that color. I'm still a lace noob, but I have been dying to take another chance at it. I'm impressed with your speed!

Hilary said...

That's a pretty nice rabbit hole to fall down! The shawl looks absolutely stunning. And what a great new necklace! Off to check out the Etsy shop it came from...

Julie said...

Ah, thanks for the link! I'm so glad you like your necklace.

Anonymous said...

Pretty! And I dunno about you, but I could use a reminder like that hanging around my neck. Either that or a big sign that has that serenity prayer on it. Do you know the one I'm talking about?

Also, the shawl is LOVELY. You can't be mad at anything that pretty.

Anonymous said...

You hardly looks like a clumsy knitter to me! :)

Susan said...

That looks great! The necklace is beautiful, too.

Kristy said...

What a pretty stole-in-progress!