Aran Wrap Cardi

Sea star and cucumber(?) at Maui Ocean Center.

My tentative adjustments to the Aran Wrap Cardi are the result of the yarn I picked to use. It's Cascade 220 from my stash, and it's a tweed. If I were to start over, I'd probably use a solid colored yarn. But this has been in my stash in large quantities since I bought it to knit a cabled poncho out of it. (The instructions for that were ridiculous, so I frogged it in frustration.) This yarn is one of my favs when I look at the ball:
But when I see it knit up, I'm having a hard time with it. It reads a very dull gray. It bothers me just like my Hemlock Ring disaster. Dull is NOT my most fav color when it's dull outside, and since I won't be wearing wool any other time but when it's dull and cold, this is most unfortunate!!!
Back to the adjustments. I was going to change the zigzag panels. One side of the cabled zig-zag has reverse stockinette, and the other has seed stitch. In this tweed yarn, you can't even see seed stitch definition, and that texture blends in and dulls the definition of the zigzag on that side. Also, for some reason, I can't get the seed stitch mojo going--I have to keep looking at the charts to see what stitch goes where for that, and it feels like it is slowing my progress down. So I was thinking both sides of the zigzag would be better done in reverse stockinette.

But NO, I am not going to frog it and start again. I decided ultimately to leave it as is. Partly because I caught a glimpse of this in natural light, and it looks way better than I was thinking!!! Yay for natural light :) And I think the change would alter the dimensions also. Apparently I could use some practice with seed stitch too, so I'm leaving it as is....It's just such a distracting yarn. (Gee, wish I was knitting this in a deep rich warm solid color, just like the Rainey Sisters!)

But:

1. I want to use this yarn up.
2. I want to see how this pattern looks knit in tweed.
3. I want to wear something made of Cascade 220! So I will soldier on (it's not that bad-looking in the right light. I love knitting with this yarn! Cushy, squishy wool. One of my go-to favs...)

So that's where I am right now. I just started the third repetition of charts. I had to mark up my chart page with the errata, and change the chart rows numbering. I also ended up putting white-out over the old numbers as I kept looking at those and getting all messed up! Now it's a piece of cake. Here are my notations to myself:


I'm having lots of fun working on this project. Today was great, a rainy and cold precursor to fall, and I cranked on the cables while I watched "The Young & The Restless" on Soapnet...See, there's a reason for soap operas to exist--they are a great excuse to sit for an hour and knit!!!!!



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