A Hazy Shade of Moonlight

Normally I post once a week or so, so that I have pictures to post - but, it's been a busy week and it makes me feel better to blog, so we have a bunch of small pictureless posts instead. Actually looking back - there have been a lot of pictureless posts lately. Oops. I promise, the pictures will return shortly.

I have, of course, started some new things since finishing Scheherazade. Or at least, I've attempted to. It's...not going well. I first tried to tackle the Jojoland Harmony scarf I was planning, Elm Row from Knitspot...but the yarn has gotten hopelessly tangled. I'm not sure what I did - I must've wound it too fast? Is there some type of rule about winding laceweight? I don't know, but it tangled badly right off the ball and I didn't make it more than a couple of rows in before I gave up in frustration. Not sure how I plan to resolve that problem, since rewinding it will still mean dealing with the tangles.

I put the yarn in time out and fetched out the Kidsilk Haze I've had squirreled away for the Moonlight Sonata shawl. That one's giving me trouble too...I've never worked with mohair before, and I really had a lot of trouble with the pattern instructions at first. I am trying not to lose hope - this frequently happens to me at the beginning of a pattern. It takes a while to get into the rhythm. Anyway, I have the collar plus two rows done. I'm really struggling with doubting my choices - doubting the yarn, doubting the color, doubting whether I should even have attempted this whole mess at all - but I'm trying to have a little faith. I'll give it a few more rows and pretty soon I'll be sailing along...hopefully. I did worry about guage and whether the pattern would show up as it should, but I checked out a few Moonlight Sonatas made out of KSH on Ravelry and it seems to have worked out for them. The color is "Nightly" and it is one of those navy blues so deep it is almost black. I keep worrying about whether it is TOO close to black, but one of the first things the SO said when he saw me making the collar was "That's a pretty color" so it must not be too bad. When I set it down and step back a bit, I feel better, so I think it's just new project anxiety. It'll be fine. (or am I in knitter's denial? always a possibility).