First Ornament, Pooling Question, and Why Can't I Find Something to Read?

I finished my first beaded ornament for this year. They only take a couple of hours, once you learn the technique, and I love shopping for beads. This is one of my favorite places!

Robin and I were talking about pooling yarns -- variegated yarns that make a splotch of color when they are supposed to stripe. My Mr. Greenjeans was fine for the first skein, but the second has left a few spots of pooling in the front by the edges. In one or two places, when I got to the end of the row, I started the yarn further down on the skein so that I could break up the color on purpose. 

 
You can see the dark patch on the lower left front, where I knotted the yarn and started a row further down the skein. There is also a light patch on the right.

I'd like her opinion and yours as to whether I should rip back to the beginning of the second skein, and alternate two skeins to break up the pooling, or if you think it's fine as is. I'm nearly to the end of this second skein, so it would be a lot of ripping, but I want it to look right.

 

Here is a closeup of the problem area, and you can see the cabled border a little better.
 

I'm having trouble finding a book to fit my mood. I started with Ann Perry's A Christmas Journey, since it was a Christmas story and presumably had some sort of mystery. After three pages, it wasn't capturing my attention, so I switched to Her Royal Spyness, the first book in a 1930s British mystery series by Rhys Bowen. I read one hundred twenty-five pages of that, and it is also not doing anything for me. A lot of people like this book and series (the third book is now out in hardcover), but I personally don't enjoy stories with aristocracy-down-on-their-luck, and this one seems to be full of those characters. It drives the point home that if you were a woman during that time who rejected the expected marriage-as-profession, no family member supported your choice, and it was difficult to make it on your own.

Our MC Georgie is cut off from her allowance and leaves her brother's home in Scotland to live in the unused, unheated London house, where she begins to find work as a housekeeper. She runs into an Irish lord, penniless, who looks up festive events like weddings in the social papers, and crashes the parties in order to get meals. He takes her to one of these, where she discovers that an old boarding school friend there is doing the same thing!  As if that weren't enough, Georgie finds out from her brother that their late father likely gambled away the ancestral home in Scotland, and a swarthy Frenchman has shown up on their doorstep to collect his winnings. I suppose here is where the mystery starts, but I don't know that I'm going to read any further. All this scrounging around off of other people is a little too tacky for me. I'm also not convinced that a woman in the 1930s would think and talk the way Georgie does. So, I went back to A Christmas Journey -- more aristocracy, more behaving badly, but in the most honorable way possible, if that makes sense.

I think what I really want to read is Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose, but with the Christmas preparations and the ongoing cat issues, I'm afraid I won't be able to concentrate on it like I hope to. It's easier to pick up and put down the mystery mind candy without forgetting too much between times.

Last Saturday, I was invited to a tea by my friend C, who belongs to the CT chapter of JASNA. I felt like a bit of an impostor since I'm not actually a member, nor a rabid Austen fan, but I really enjoyed it. The speaker, Sarah MacLean, has just published The Season, and had a lot of cool things to say about Jane's contribution to novel writing techniques, and her ability to combine romance and humor. I've only read P&P once a long time ago, so I hope to get another copy soon, and read it before a trip to the Morgan Library's exhibit in January. It could be the beginning of a new obsession.

Comments

[Robin]

My opinion is that I would frog back - I don't think you'll be happy with the project as it is and it really won't take that long to reknit.

[sprite]

Must be the season. I'm hard-pressed to get into anything I'm reading, too. (I haven't read this Rhys Bowen series, but loved her Evan Evans series that takes place in Wales.)

I agree with Robin. I think the fact that you're asking means you already know the answer.

[Beth]

That cabled border is really pretty! I agree with the others. If you are doubting the way it looks now, you probably won't be happy with it later.

[Chris]

I think you should frog back. As it is, that pale area manages to look like you spilled bleach on the sweater - breaking that color block would help a lot.

Bummer about not finding anything to read. Is there an old familiar comfort read you could pick up?

[Bubblesknits]

Yeah, normally if you're having doubts, that means you already know what you need to do.

I love the ornaments. :-)

[Mrs SDC]

Perhaps you are ready for a new "In Death" book?

[Sydney]

I like your ornament!

I'm a plow ahead with my knitting unless there is a major error or something else that bothers me too much to continue. But even for me it draws my eye too much and it seems to bother you a lot too. I would rip it back.

[Sonya]

I'd frog too. It will be worth it in the end. I hate it when no books appeal to me. Fortunately it never lasts too long.

[Kristen]

Ditto- I think you will be happier frogging.
I'm reading the new biography of Louisa May Alcott by Harriet Riesen. I know you visited her final resting place recently and might find it of interest.

[Dorothy W.]

The ornament looks great! I'm sorry you aren't finding a book that is working right now. The Prose book is really good for dipping into, with relatively short chapters that stand on their own fairly well, so if you started that one, you could set it aside when you needed to without any problem. But I understand wanting to stick to the easier stuff for now! I hope you find something that works. I go through reading slumps now and then too, when it seems that nothing is quite right.

[Dotty]

My vote is to frog it and reknit. I think you'll be much happier with the end result.