Thank you otherwise-crappy-pop-song for giving me my color scheme!

his eyes
are where home lies
where the blue skies
meet the sunrise

 

Congratulations, Shawn and David!

This was done in Frabjous Fibers’ handspun recycled Banana Silk yarn, as I was looking for something that looked and felt really really special, suitable for a wedding present. It is indeed a really nice yarn – the sheen is amazing – but it was a poor choice for this specific project. (It would work well in something more open and loosely stitched, definitely – and as I overbought on yardage out of anxiety, I will have further opportunity to work with this.)

I was originally planning to make a box in this intertwined S + D pattern, with the bottom being of the same design but one round smaller so it would nestle inside the top. To that end, I downsized my hook from the recommended J to a G, in hopes of getting the fabric stiff enough that it could support itself over the span of the box without sagging into the interior… or at least that was the plan. First, I went a bit overboard in the dimensions in hope of getting enough stitches to make the pattern clear… and second, with the natural gauge variations in the handspun skeins, I would get patches of really tight stitches intermixed with loose ones and thus it stayed overall more flexible than I wanted. Rather than fiddling around with wiring the top just so, to ensure all wire was concealed from both sides of the fabric, I said “what the hey” and turned it into a pillow. Overall I am quite pleased with the end result, and the newlyweds loved it.

My lesson learned: for intarsia projects I need to look for crisply, evenly spun yarns with no frizzies to blur the color changes – i.e, NOT handspun.