A Little Bit of Heaven

You know that feeling when you're not at all sure that the choice you've made is the right one? That feeling in the pit of your stomach that you get every time you look at a project at just the right angle and think, "Holy crap, what was I thinking?"

Well, I'd been having that feeling.

It started when I ran out of yarn for my 198 Yds of Heaven shawlette. I'd had these three skeins of Bouton d'Or Ksar in my stash for a looooong time -- had gotten them in a mystery swap and just hadn't known what to do with them, but wanted to use them for something nommy because of the camel down content -- and I finally thought I'd found just the right project. Trouble was, I had also just started posting FOs for the 10 in 2010 KAL/CAL on rav, and in order for my latest project to count, it needed to use a minmum of 250 meters.

The three balls of Ksar topped out at a nail-biting, head-scratching 249.6 meters.

So, I decided to extend the pattern. I worked another full pattern repeat of the body, and then I thought I would just pick a contrasting yarn for the edging.

Easier said than done.

The Ksar is a breathtakingly soft and lofty, plied camel/wool blend in a dark chocolate brown. I had nothing in my stash to match it for structure, look and feel.

Nothing.

And so, I punted. I pulled out all the stops and went in a completely different direction. For the edging, I used a viscose/silk/linen blend -- RY Natural Silk Aran -- in a slightly tweedy bone color. This yarn knitted up nothing at all like the Ksar. For starters, it was rustic looking, to say the least. Where the Ksar was soft and inviting, the Silk Aran was crisp and stiff. The flecks of blue and red running through the slubby, 2-ply Silk Aran seemed somewhat out of place against the classic, smooth three-ply Ksar. And every time I looked at my shawl, I got that sinking feeling that this just wasn't going to come together.

So, I did what any other sane, logical knitter would have done.

I kept right on knitting.

Here's the result:

Isn't she luuuuuuuurvely???

I'm so pleased, I truly am. I can't wait for it to be cool enough to wear this. I love the way the two colors and textures work together, and the hard blocking really brought out the best in the lace pattern. At first I was regretting not having had enough of the Ksar to simply do a one-color shawl, but now I'm really glad that I had to make do like this. I got a much more interesting result and a much more attractive shawl than I would have otherwise.

Now the question is, what shawl do I cast on for next?