Design gone Bad

Sometimes the ole family motto:  "Seemed like a good idea at the time" applies when what happens is sorta yuck.

I wanted to design something different than a hat.  But I like the quickness of accessories so I thought I would design a neck/cowl thingy.  I wanted it to be somewhat stranded but not exactly fair isle.  Because it was stranded I thought it should be reversible so the backside of the stranded work wouldn't catch on things.  I also wanted a southwest flavor and since it was going around the neck - not scratchy.  I started fiddling with the math of gauge, size, yarn and charting to make it all work with 3 repeats of the design.  I came up with this:

Ye ole Chart

The white background of the chart would actually be a black yarn and I was looking for gold, turquoise, red and black.  I chose KnitPicks Gloss DK yarn for it's softness; and I was thinking about submitting it to the Independent Design Program.  Well...I have said before I am not the most technical knitter and figured  I would just duplicate stitch the sun motif (which I didn't), and do a modified intarsia for the deer rather than carry the threads from one deer motif to the next.  This brilliant idea gave me a gazillion ends to weave in.  I am thinking a duplicate stitch for the deer motif and the sun would have been a better choice over all.

Now I generally don't mind weaving in ends, but this was just plain obnoxious.  It also created another problem - showing through the front.

You can see the woven ends showing through the black - yuck!

To use the yarn more efficiently I stripped the back side which made it look way to "Cat in the Hat" for me.  But then I am not a big fan of stripping.

I have just sat on this thing for weeks.  I am at the 3 needle purl bind off, once I finish weaving in the rest of the ends, and I am having the hardest time looking at it.  I can say that it won't be going to the IDP program for consideration. I am so disenchanted with this I don't want to spend the money to buy yarn for test knitters.  I might in a moment of madness buy more yarn for myself and do the whole thing over again doing a duplicate stitch for the deer and sun to see what happens. 

 I will probably post it to Ravelry for the usual $1.99 with a serious "You really don't want to do this because you will regret it sales job" description.  Charging for something kicks in the cognitive dissonance function and psychologically peeps are less likely to be irritated then if you give the pattern away for free - go figure.