Purple Yarn of Doom

At the end of July I shared with you that I was having trouble hearing what the eleven skeins of Karabella Aurora 8 in the beautiful Eggplant colorway wanted to be.  My relationship with this yarn has not been a good one and a wise friend nick named the yarn the purple "yarn of doom" (YoD).

After I realized, again, that I wouldn't have enough yarn to finish the sweater I let the unfinished Wicked sweater sit in exile in it's plastic bag prison.  I let it fester. I let it scream at me.  I let it wait.  I ignored it.  I tried not to feel sorry for it.  I did not let it visit with the other yarn in my stash.  I broke the yarn.  I'm happy to report that I won this battle - it finally gave up.

In an unusual fashion for me I made a split second decision on what to make with this purple YoD.  When the Fall 2010 Issue of Twist Collective came out  and I saw the Hawthorne shawl by Susanna IC I fell in love.  Madly in love.  I can't wear most traditional shawls because they just don't fit me, but this one has a wing span of 69" which I can wear.  Then I noticed it was knit with worsted weight yarn which meant the pattern would go fast. And then I realized that THIS could be the pattern for the purple yarn.  The last chance for the purple yarn.

I am delighted to report that Hawthorne was the perfect project for this purple YoD.  On August 16th I found the pattern, bought it, printed it (and left it on the printer at work).  As soon as I got home I took the Wicked sweater out of it's plastic prison and frogged it.  I cast on the first row of 311 stitches and knit three rows of the chart.

I didn't worry about running out of yarn. I knew I had enough.  I knit this shawl like the wind - I finished it only seven days after casting it on.  I didn't care that at one point there were 450 stitches per row.  The pattern was so well written and the chart was clear and easy to follow.  I enjoyed knitting this shawl - seeing the pattern develop as I knit it.  

The yarn and I finally made our peace and I could not be happier with the final product.  This is what this YoD was meant to be.  The even bigger surprise to me with this project is that I am going to keep this shawl for myself.  The temperatures dropped Friday morning so there was a chill in the air.  I picked up this shawl, wrapped it around my shoulders and proudly wore the shawl all day, knowing I had conquered this yarn.

The details can be found on my Ravelry project page.  

As much as I love this shawl there is a problem.  This shawl only used half of the purple YoD.  What to do with the other half of it?  I'm thinking I might just make this shawl again & give it away.  I know the yarn works for this project so why not?  For now the rest of the purple YoD had been returned to the general population of my yarn stash. I hope it is making friends up there and will soon be knit into something else.....as long as it maintains it's good behavior.