Friday 16 September 2011

Bye Bye Birdie

I was sitting yesterday contemplating how much I was not enjoying knitting the sleeves on Cerisara.  Everything, right up to the sleeves has been idyllic.  


I was not knitting on Cerisara, but I was thinking about it.  I was knitting on a different sweater, a new sweater yet right there beside me was a perfectly lovely sweater I was avoiding.  A perfectly lovely sweater that I really can't wait to wear.  And yet, I could not make myself knit it.  It was starting to feel like dishes, like one of those things you have to do but that you really don't want to do.

I don't want to do that anymore with knitting.  I want to be able to figure out exactly what the problem is and sort it out before I put it down.  I do not want my knitting life be endless piles of things I stopped working on for years because I had a problem.   

So I sat there and calmly kept knitting on the new sweater.  Counterintuitive, you say?  Not really.  

What was bugging me?  I needed to pick it apart. The sleeves were tighter in this lace than I was comfortable with.  I could take the sleeves back to before the under arm join, and pull back the body and then put back the stitches I took out from the underarm cast on.  The trade off would be sleeves that fit my arm or a saggy, baggy under the arms sweater.

I did not really want either.  

Bye pretty little perpendicular join that made me feel so clever.  Bye pretty little sleeve cap.  Bye pretty lace.  

Check.  Done.   I've knit a nice sleeve edging that will carry the design feature of the rolling front edge and am moving on to the skirt of the sweater.  A few more increases there and then it will be pure simple lovely stockinette.  

I'm going to knit a plain garden variety long sleeved high necked pullover to wear with it for the days when I want cherry sleeves.  

I feel much better now.  I am enjoying knitting on Cerisara again. I am really looking forward to wearing it.  I have a swatch done for the next sweater.  I do not have yet another project in the WIP bin.  A very productive day.

1 comment:

Julie Matthews said...

It's really pretty! Glad you're knitting it your way. As it should be!