Delph Dilemma

"Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better."
-Émile Coué

"To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture."

-Pablo Picasso

Okay Pablo, I will take comfort in the fact that Delphinium still has a great deal of soul.

And yes Emile, it IS getting better.

You know, if I had had any idea I was going to change the pattern this much I would have started much earlier...

Say...

February???

I had this design in the bag, having already started it in Canopy last Spring, before deciding it would make a terrific Garden Variety pattern. After all the gauge was similar and the color just a paler shade of blue/violet.

Or so I thought.

In reality, changing from wool to seasilk changed the way the pattern looked. What seemed in perfect proportion now seemed too open and plain.

Adding beads further complicated things. They didn't show up well in the original placement.

So I edited.

And re-edited.

And re-edited again.

And since I am a visual thinker, I knitted.

And frogged.

And re-knitted.

And re-frogged.

And so on...

And so forth...

World without end.

Amen.

I am now on version 9 or 10. I lost count somewhere around 7 or 8.

I have knit the first couple inches enough times to have completed the scarf it began as...

Enough times to be halfway done with the stole it has wound up as...

And each time I was convinced this one was THE ONE AND ONLY.

Sort of like Liz Taylor and husbands.

Ah hubris...

No pictures yet. Hopefully tomorrow.

In the meantime, I take comfort from Stuart Smalley:

It's good enough, it's smart enough, and doggone it, people will like it!