a fail and a win

I think all knitters have had a project or two where they get halfway through and start to wonder if it's going to work out. Then one has to decide if it's worth it to press on and finish, or rip the project and repurpose the supplies.

I chose to press on. I had one ball of Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud laceweight in the 'stream' colorway (discontinued), leftover from the feather and fan shawl I knit while pregnant with AJ (2008). I came across this pattern on Ravelry, and thought, why not?

Well, I'll tell you why not. This project is a total fail. The pattern is fine; well-written and easy to execute. (And as an aside, check out the designer's work, it will blow your mind.) The problem: very poor match of yarn to pattern on my part. Alpaca Cloud has absolutely ZERO body, and does not hold up well to the beads. When I tried to put it on my neck and style it nicely, it just flopped. In the pattern picture you can see the cowl actually stands up a bit and has body to it, but mine is nothing like that. And I even went down a needle size because I didn't have an 8 handy - I used a US 7.

This makes me sad because it was no small feat putting over 700 beads into my knitting. It took a long time! The color is pretty, and the silvery beads sparkle so nicely, but sadly, I just don't see myself wearing it.

Oh well, live and learn. At least that ball of laceweight is used up!

Happily, the bread dough I mixed up last night resulted in a win:

It's still hot and I can't wait for it to be cool enough to cut. It's the easiest recipe in the world to follow and it comes out great every time (I use 2 cups AP flour and 1 cup WW flour). I used my Ma Ingalls cast iron dutch oven and it worked perfectly.

Back to my etsy order and a cup of tea.