crisis/crisis averted

Yesterday evening, I was cruising along on my friend Julie's birthday present. I had about 7 1/2 rounds left to do in the colorwork. Then, I realized:


If I had kids in the house I would have told them "Earmuffs" (a la Vince Vaughn in Old School) because there were some words I wanted to say. But, I don't have kids so I just went ahead and said them.

You see, the background yarn for this project for Julie is yarn I dyed once when I was experimenting and, of course, I don't have any more of this yarn. At all. Anywhere.

So, after a few minutes of self-indulgent cussing, I realized that I could come up with a solution. This item (still a secret, her birthday is next week) is not clothing, so I had options that I may not have had if it was clothing. So, I decided to unknit the bottom 8 rounds and salvage the background color from them. Then, I would knit only 2 more rounds of the colorwork and knit the rest of the top plain with the foreground color (which I have plenty of). I would then, knit 8 rounds plain on the bottom and it would be done.


I'm not going to lie to you: this was a pain in the butt to do. Somehow, when you anchor your color strands it makes it a bit tough to unknit (har). It's done though and I'm relieved because it worked.

This is all that remains of the background color yarn. whew.

Now, the project is blocking and I can't wait for Julie's birthday. I'm always like that with presents. I'll probably end up giving her her gift early.

I definately improved on my fair isle abilities with this project (you'll understand how that could be when you see the whole thing)(sorry for the tease). I also realized that I can definately solve a lot of my fair isle tension issues with blocking.
I test-blocked (steam from the iron) part of the project while I was working on it:


You can see the contrast in this section, unblocked:


I will show the whole project once it is gifted. I just never know if my friends will happen by when I have something for them to show. Until then, another tease: