Halfway Through Raking Leaves
The problem with pieces of knitting that are 5" wide and 39" long is that it is almost impossible to capture a picture for the web that makes the project look like anything more than a long strip of color.
In this case, you get a long strip of color with a small teaser of how clever looking those leaves at the end are (I'll save a closeup for when the scarf is completed), but even I have to admit that it's not particularly awe inspiring. So I decided that I needed to get a few detail shots. But as always tend to find, it's hard to capture both color and texture of a yarn with a lot of sheen in the same picture.
While this photo brings the color out well, most of the texture is lost. Some of this, I know, is due to adding the complexity of a variagated yarn to a somewhat subtle pattern. But most of it is due to the fact that this yarn reflects light like crazy when I use the flash, and in the room I'm taking the picture in, a flash is required for good color representation.
While this photo brings out the texture, you don't get a good reproduction of the color. You lose the soft reds that are an important component of the yarn. You do, however, get to see the texture of the leaves once the scarf has been blocked out (albeit with a bit of fuzziness -- taking a macro mode shot without a tripod and without flash in low light while trying to get ready for work is a recipe for somewhat fuzzy pictures).
I was relatively gentle on the blocking of this. I thought about stretching it a bit more aggressively, but felt that that would probably reduce what little elasticity is in this yarn, and would end up creating a more lacy texture than I wanted. I had no problem getting the right width (i.e. stitch count) relative to what was called for on this pattern, but I had to had 2 more pattern intervals to get to the desired length, so clearly Harmony does not deliver the suggested gauge for this pattern. But since it's a scarf and I had a huge hank of Harmony, this isn't really a big deal to me.
I'm still a bit surprised by how quickly this went. Especially when combined with a book or two from Audible. Maybe there's hope that I'll get the remaining half done before Christmas!
Wow, Theresa, that is just gorgeous. I love the colors of the yarn and the detail is beautiful. Looks like it is really soft, too!
What a beautiful pattern. And the color is fantastic. That's going to be wonderful when you're done.
I blocked my BYL too, and it also ended up 39". This is getting scary. :) I ended up with only 5 pattern repeats though so my row gauge was off as well. Mine's also a little bit wider too. I pulled it out a little bit at the sides but not a lot because I too feared that it would mess up the design more than I want. I'll leave the pictures for you because I can't take a good close up of knitting to save my life!
I need to have it done by the 20th to give at the work luncheon. I need to get another Ruffles done in that same time!