Garden Pond

A few weeks back I started a small lace project.  I needed something that was easily done while sitting in a hospital waiting room.  In the queue for over a year was Garden Pond which as it turned out was the perfect project.  It was discovered at last year's Olde Liberty Fiber Faire in Wolle's booth.  I usually don't buy the particular  yarn called for in patterns.  Most of the time I'll find a pattern and look through the stash to see what yarns I have that will work with that particular pattern.  Sometimes the approach works out...sometime it does not.  In this case I bought the yarn and followed up with the pattern as soon as I saw the finished project in Wolle's booth.  I thought the sample color variegations were pretty cool.  I chose a different colorway , but this one worked just as well.  My husband even made positive comments on the finished wrap as it was blocking.  A winner!

The yarn is 100% cotton thread.  Not a fan of cotton yarns, but this one has a very interesting construction. It is made up of 6 strings which are not plied into what I'd call 'yarn' per see.  You knit along with all 6 strings dyed in the same shade of color.  At some point a small knot shows up where the color of one string changes...very little difference in shade is first noticed.  This shifting continues with each of the remaining strings until you've totally changed over to another color. Depending upon the size of the ball this will go through the process two times or more.  In my case it started out with six strings of a rich brown, adds a lighter taupe color until there are six strings of taupe, then switches to a sky blue until there are six strings of blue.  The effect is a gradual shift from brown to blue.  It makes me think of a garden in the spring...dirt to sky or maybe dirt to water would be a better description.  Whichever way you want to look at it the yarn was a perfect choice for a pattern called Garden Pond.

As a side note I did not cut the knot out of my knitting.  I was afraid things would fall apart as time goes on so I left the knot on the reverse side...pretty hard to spot once you're done.

The pattern was a just a small taste of lace...mostly stockinette with a band of lace to break up the boredom.  It was easily memorized and moved along pretty quickly.  The wrap is on the smallish size, but it used every last bit of this yarn.  In fact I ran a wee bit shy on the bind off and had to resort to a small substitution in order to finish.

Details
Pattern:  Garden Pond by Patricia Martin; 

Yarn:  Wolle's Yarn Creations Color Changing;100% cotton; Fingering; 100gram/480 yards; Colorway Blue Honey #4.

Needles:  Addi Lace; US 5; 48" circular

Gauge:  26 stitches x 26 rows

Size:  After blocking 42" x 19"...across the top at the longest point mine is a good bit larger than the pattern's schematic.

Modifications:  I decreased a few rows of stockinette in order to add another repeat of lace at the end.  The pattern called for just three repeats of the fern lace border and I wanted to do a bit more.  Although I did end up running out of yarn as I bound off...oops.  I ran out 18 inches from finishing the bind off.  What to do?  I ended up stash diving and substituted Rowan Calmer in a shade of blue that is so close that so far no one has noticed.  The gauge and ply are slightly off, but not enough for most people to notice...a knitter will notice a couple more errors.  Glaring ones. 

Yet one more 'mistake'...jeez

Can you spot the Rowan switch?