redesign

Last night the (prescription) drugs and mania and lack of sleep finally caught up to me. I've had a similar effect from going too long without food, but this was pretty intense. You know those people at Walmart who kind of wander around looking like they're not sure what planet they just came from or how they got here, and it will take them at least the next 45 minutes to choose one of the identical gallons of 2% milk, and meanwhile their friggin' cart is rudely blocking the entire aisle? I guess now I know where they come from--that was me last night. The longer I was there, the stupider I got, so the harder it was to leave. Eventually I took myself in hand, bought some honey roasted peanuts (protein and sugar--surely these would take care of it!) and fled. I only wanted one thing: big cheap plastic trays for dyeing my yarn in. Most people use them for something to do with gardening, but I guess gardening season is over, so they didn't have any, so the whole thing was a completely wretched waste.
I obsessively wanted to work on the cape, and after a little dinner, I was up to that for about 15 minutes before expiring altogether. Let me tell you, if there's a better thing on this earth that going to bed early and getting a long, deep, solid sleep, I can't think of it.
But back to the cape. Yesterday I was noticing that the gold rayon and the yarn after it (hereafter known as Yarn X) don't have that much contrast between them, and although I like them together, it might be even more awesome to take out one row of Yarn X and move it into the stripe of the next yarn, which is a dark, rich, teal. I decided to try this by swatching right onto the end of the cape, and I love the effect, but it produced more possible changes to the design in my mind. Maybe instead of the original fuzzy trim yarn, Yarn X should be moved away from the gold altogether and become the bottom trim as well as a stripe in the middle of the teal? (Read picture from right to left.)


Love it! But then maybe it would be better to use the original fuzzy trim after all. What would that look like?


I like this too, but I'm leaning toward the first option (the change of design so that Yarn X is the trim). There is something to be said for the rhythm that would be established by starting and ending with the same fuzzy trim, but in this case, it really seems too corny. It's too symmetrical or something. So, new plan: frog back through all of Yarn X, redo one very thin row of Yarn X, stripe teal, thin row of Yarn X, stripe teal, finish with Yarn X. It's not going to be done tonight (I am so obsessed with finishing this thing!) but the new design is so much better, it's worth it.