Bad pun. Well, my newest adventure has been in trying to get yarn to do the Pocket Dreams blanket from the Vogue Knitting Baby Blankets book. I have been trying to find an affordable-ish yarn that was washable and had good colors. The blanket is shown in the book using Cleckheaton yarns. They are apparently from Australia and not so easy to find. When I did find them, they did not have the colors that were used in the book. So, I picked the usual baby colors -- the parents of the baby allegedly do not know the baby's gender (I question this since all of the things that they registered for were for boys, not unknowns, but maybe it's just a subconscious thing?). I got my yarns from Patternworks. I was going to go with Knitpicks, but the yarns that fit the gauged that I wanted were a) unwashable and b) very bright. I love the brightness of the yarns and used them for the Wild Stripes blanket from Knitty, but it didn't seem right for this one. Plus, this mother seems to like calmer colors in general and I wanted to make something for her that SHE would like -- not just me.
So, here's what happened: 1) I went to the Patternworks website and it was down for repairs. I waited until 12AM, when both the site and I were ready, to order the stuff! 2) I tried to figure out their ordering process whereby you put the color's number into the box to get the site to recognize which yarn you want -- don't allow any spaces or anything and don't used the color's name. ONLY use the number associated w/ the color. 3) The first color I wanted was out of stock, so I was very nervous that this would happen with all of the colors. Thankfully, it did not. But, it did change the color combination. I got all the colors I wanted otherwise for the most part -- except that I chose an orangey color to take the lilac's place and the website wouldn't recognize the number. It said it was invalid. Go figure. So, instead I got a greeny-color. I didn't get overly pissed off because I decided it was karmic. I had hemmed and hawed tooo much about the color and decided that this was the Fates deciding for me, so I went with it.... 4) I paid and all was fine. It wasn't a horrible experience by any stretch, but it was not quite as smooth as I would have liked.
I look forward to getting my shipment!! What is more fun than getting a box full of yummy yarn?? Yay!
On another note, in looking for a link for the Vogue book, I found the comments of the other purchasers of that book and they have scared the bejesus out of me!! They talk about how messed up the directions are, etc. Yikes. I often find directions to be frightening, but so far have been okay with this book. Of course, I've done ONE pattern (that I'm not yet done with). Although I have not had big problems with the pattern that I am working on, I do fully agree with their sentiment that the designers have not thought through very thoroughly what these things are going to look like in the end. Are they meant to be used??? Mine is intarsia (as many of them are) and it is a HUGE freaking mess in the back. I have been sweating this, actually. If they lay the blanket down somewhere and never use it, no problem, right?? But, I am giving serious thought to putting a backing on it so that all of the threads will be covered -- so it doesn't look so ugly -- and so that it might be less inclined to pull apart after being used/washed once. I am sooo convinced this baby's gonna fall apart. I have spent a lot of time on it, too, so that would be a big problem. I'll let you know how that goes. And, gosh darn it, I need to be photographing this thing.
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