I have been working away at my stash busting sweater design (gosh that's one pretty blog post! So much colour!) and though I'm 99% in love with it, I'm not convinced that I've nailed it just yet. I have knit and re-knit the yoke at least 4 times. This is what the past few days have looked like:
1) Make a chart, start knitting, realize that what looks good on the computer doesn't always translate into looking good in knitting. Rrrrrrip.
2) Try again, this time with no chart! Just wing it and do what feels right. Worked for a few rows, but with this much colour sometimes you need a bit of a plan. Rrrrrrip.
3) Try again, this time taking what worked from the willy-nilly-no-chart approach and making a chart to carry on in the same style. Realize that the increases just don't look right and now the yoke isn't diverse enough, needs more action. Rrrrrrip.
4) Try again, this time nailing it! Maybe? Still not convinced about the very middle, but I'm persevering.
I love the beginning, I love the end, but I may still make a couple of tweaks to the middle. But then again maybe not, the more I look at it the more it's growing on me. Lucky for me I just about always knit my designs twice, so I am happy to call this one an almost-perfect trial run and my next one will be spot on! Interestingly enough I've played around with this yoke chart and flipped it on it's head colour-wise (starting with the pink and ending with the yellow) and the feel is totally different. This one is very purple heavy (obviously the choice of Grape for the body helps there) but done in the opposite colour sequence the result is very blue/green. Which is perfect since I think that version 2.0 of this sweater will be for Rowan and he looks great in blue/green.
I think that what's bothering me about this design is that it feels somewhere in between modern and traditional fair isle. Which, I now realize, is exactly what I said I wanted to do so... I may be talking myself into loving it just the way it is!