It has been a tough week. I had some back stiffness that became bad enough to keep me home. Thankfully, it got better in time for Bourbon night on Saturday (a monthly tasting of fine Bourbons at our house). Sadly, half way through the evening, Roger had an allergic reaction to some fish and we were off to the local Emergency Room. He spent the night, but was home in time for lunch the next day. He is fine now. I am very grateful for the miracle of modern medicine and the wonderful staff at Alta Bates.
Here is the gang are before the dinner break of doom.
From the left: Lear, Roger, Heidi, Neal, and Ken. This picture was taken during a blind tasting. Five samples are poured for each person and they taste them trying to decide which they like best and what they may be.
But this is a fiber blog, so enough of Bourbon and angst.
In round one of the Maisle sweater swatching, the horizontal stripes were too strong and it lacked a spark.
Ronni suggested that I switch around the individual motifs. The two rows were different heights (13 rows and 17 rows) so I spread them out and tweaked them to emphasize diagonal lines. In black & white I like it a lot. (Editted to put up the correct graph.)
So a swatching we will go. It is actually the fourth swatch (the first and third not being worthy of your time and attention). I found another orange to ease to transition from reds to yellow and an eggplant for pop at the center of the burgundy. It does have more pop in person.
Here it is tiled (click for big as always). As before the horizontal is too strong. The diagonals get lost and the vertical isn't very strong either. Sigh.
Roger has a great eye. We concluded that I should remove the white (at the eggplant row) which will decrease the lemon yellow to one row. That will mean the greens will be stronger throughout the motifs. I could even remove the lemon yellow from the greens. I am also thinking about adding a black at the center of the dark greens. Maybe I need to remove the lemon yellow from the oranges too.
Thoughts? suggestions?