colonial house and my CW

[purlewe]

Well, I watched the final 2 hours of CH last nite. I would love to rant and rave about this show. I feel so cheated somehow. The people I liked the best were the people who were the servants. Why? Because they did their job and didn't do much of the complaining and bitching about how they wanted things done in a way that wasn't 17th century! I was complaining to Sue about it last nite. I mean the women only did housework (takes a long time I know) and cooking. I never saw them really doing any other things to help the colony. OK, taking care of the chickens and goats. But I had a problem with the whole no sewing, candlemaking etc. (Someone pointed out to me that they would not have knit or made cloth as the empire wanted you to buy their goods. So no knitting, spinning etc.) The children never seemed to do any work, and I know that kids would have worked back then to help with their fair share. Heck kids were adults around 12 then! Sue had several good points: a brand new, non-established colony would not have beeswax or tallow, unless they had brought it with them. I think of all the waste they created. Using candles in the middle of the day. Teaching and learning schoolwork (for adults only it appeared) in the summer!! They were grasshoppers for sure since they knew they would not be staying the winter months. They didn't really have to make sure they could provide for themselves and THAT is the real reason they survived. They passed the "test" but in reality, a winter would have weeded them out.

Ode to my CW.
O lovely CW. Ask the knitting gods to smile down on me because I have just realized that I completely screwed up the color change and have made the decision to refuse to frog. I love the way it looks. There are no glaring stitch errors. I will forge on. Instead of 5 colors it will be 4. I need to decide if I will goto 154 rows or add 16 rows to balance it out the shading (170 rows?? EEK!!! imagine the number of sts by then if on row 154 I have approx 24,500 stitches. adding 16 more rows might kill me!) So, dear blog readers, what do you say? 4 colors and 154 rows (as CW dictates?) or 4 colors and 170 rows (as shading dictates.) There is just NO WAY i'll frog now. I love it too much.

Comments

[kismet09.livejournal.com]

I cannot even comprehend adding 16 rows at this point! These rows take forever! However, my colorway is totally different from theirs (I'm using 7 colors), so I don't have much feedback on its looks. Why not just do the shading now? How many rows in are you?

colors

[purlewe.livejournal.com]

thank you for the input. I really am leaning towards just going the way I have and stopping at color 4, row 154. i'll let you know how it pans out. (plus pics after the weekend. since I'll be on a train to and from NYC. plenty of CW time)

Re: colors (and NYC!)

[kismet09.livejournal.com]

I will be in NY for the weekend, too! There are some nice yarn stores :)

Re: colors (and NYC!)

[purlewe.livejournal.com]

I have to take the train to NYC then hop on the Metro north to Poughkeepsie. I'll be coming back through Monday as well. It will be the easiest way to get to my aunt's house without the car this weekend.

[boogie-babe.livejournal.com]

I agree about the CH. I think they had it easy compared to what it should have been. I liked Frontier house much better.

CW - stop at 154. I can't imagine making it bigger. The design is so beautiful that I don't think you could go wrong with color changes.

[purlewe.livejournal.com]

yes! its the bigger might not be better syndrome!

[xaviermusketeer.livejournal.com]

I'd have an opinion, but I haven't see the CW pattern, so I don't know how it all works out. But if it were me, I'd probably figure out a way to make it look nicest without doing any extra rows. Can you shorten the shading rows and the regular rows (do a row or two fewer for each) to add in the shading too, but still have 154 rows in the end?

Did that even make any sense?

[purlewe.livejournal.com]

of course it made sense!

I think I might do it like I drew it out last nite. see if you can follow along: (all colors are caps letters) P to row 26, mix P & V to row 58, V to row 74, mix V & G to row 106, G to row 122, mix ? & G to row 154. Then I'll have plenty of ? (where ? is a unknown since I am picking it out this weekend) to make the crochet edging. I think that will work and I doubt anyone will say that I wasn't making a nice shawl.

[xaviermusketeer.livejournal.com]

There you go! As long as it looks pretty to you, who cares if your rows aren't exactly the same as the pattern.