Backyard Leaves in Winter

I was going to post last night, with some pictures I took yesterday, but when I realized it was going to be 50 degrees and sunny here in Chicago this morning (an almost unheard of sort of thing for a day like January 12th) I decided that it would be a lot nicer to re-shoot my pictures in the sunlight. Well, a lot nicer for me, at least, since sunlight is not to be taken without appreciation in January in Chicago.

So, without further ado, may I introduce my most recent finished item: Annie Modesitt's Backyard Leaves Scarf from the Scarf Style book that came out last year.

Backyard Leaves Scarf Enjoying Some Sunshine

This scarf was made with Brooks Farm Harmony (a mohair silk blend yarn) instead of the recommended Karabella yarn. Let me provide you with a little warning if you choose a similar yarn: mohair and silk have almost no elasticity. Thus, it's easy to get distorted stitches that don't look the way you want them to and won't spring back into position after dealing with a knit 3 together. Blocking helps a little bit, but it doesn't correct all the problems. Secondly, mohair and silk don't tend to poof up to fill the space like wool will, so textured patterns may not end up with the same texture as you expect them to have from the picture in the book. This isn't meant to dissuade anyone from either using this yarn or this pattern or both of them together-- instead, it's just meant to let you know that the choice of mohair rather than merino will have consequences. You will get more luster but less elasticity. It's all in what you like.

Harmony isn't a bad substitution from a gauge perspective. However, there is another caveat to this as well. I ended up getting the the right width dimensions, but significantly shorter length dimensions for one pattern unit. Thus, to get the desired length, I had to add two more pattern units to each scarf piece. Not really a big deal, since I had plenty of yarn, but it did surprise me a little bit. And it definitely is an example of why row gauge matters. Though, clearly, row gauge and final length in a scarf are mostly matters of personal taste.

Leaf Detail

Ignore the color on this shot, it's more dreadfully off than the color in the first picture -- my camera finds reds and oranges to be difficult to deal with. This gives you an idea of what the lovely leaves come out to look like but, if you look at the stems in the picture, you can also see some of what I mean by wonky stitches. You can compare the way the mohair silk blend looks with a version done in a more compatible yarn, unblocked and blocked by sweet georgia if you want to see some of the differences.

Leaf Point Detail

This picture actually has good color fidelity (it's actually one from my overcast photoshoot yesterday) I'm putting it up because I think it is really a shame that this beautiful detail isn't shown on the model in the book. I think Annie did an amazing job here of bringing this scarf to a fabulous end. The shaping is beautiful and easy to achieve.

Now for the question of the day. I still have some yarn left over from the project. I don't think it's enough for a hat or mittens (it would be nice if it was, because that would be the perfect complement to this project) but I think it might be enough for a pair of wrist warmers. However, because of the lack of elasticity in this yarn, I'm concerned that even if I made the wristwarmers with a stretchy ribbing, eventually they would just stretch out and be of no use to my mom. I don't want to make her something that's going to need to be blocked all the time -- or that's going to slip off at a bad time or be easy to lose. Any thoughts as to what might be a good use for this yarn? I could always just give the left over to mom so that she has something to play with. But I would love to hear a good creative suggestion.

P.S. Thanks for the nice response to my spinning yesterday, and to my sock query from the day before. I got a lot of helpful information and questions. I'll try to answer those tomorrow!