Getting there one row at a time.

Hi Fay.  Lovely to hear from you.  The yarn on the blue sweater is some cones I got from Webs sales way long ago.  2008 or 2009 I think.  The colour is very similar to Quoddy Blue from Briggs and Little.  There is no mill tag inside the cones so I have no idea of the source.  

I wore the sweater yesterday for a bit.  Still needs a couple more good washes till the weaving oil is out of it.  The scent of it was so strong on wearing it that I dreamed I could smell it last night.  A couple more good washes till it is wearable.  Maybe three.  It's a beauty but it smells.

 I did not work on my London Fog sweater ( a colourway name from Midknit Cravings).  I sat and watched F1 stuff and then realized I was kind of avoiding knitting.  I craved something new.  I yearned for a change.  I know that I have a gorgeous yellow sweater that is new to my needles.  I know there are many other things to knit in my WIPs bin but oh how strong the urge was.  I caved.

Let me first say, we have a lot of snow yet.  We tend to get lots of snow in March so it might be spring for you but for me it still feels winterish.  I went through all my planned project sweater bags and ended up with my yarn for a Staffin sweater.  The yarn I am using is Ultra Alpaca in this deep cherry red.  It's almost burgundy but not quite.  It's going to make a lovely warm sweater.

It's a very different thing for me to follow a pattern where it is just simple stripes and plain stockinette and a pattern with patterning that determines the look of the garment in it.  I have a bit of a problem when numbers and letters are on the same row and I really find it a struggle.  You have no idea how difficult it is for me to stick, word for word and row by row to a pattern.   I have always admired those of you who can.  For my sweater to look like the design, I have to stick as close as I can to the written words.  

I plucked up my courage and followed as I could.  Everytime my anxiety over this got too much I put it down for a bit.  I decided it was okay to do this until I "got" where she was going with the pattern and the short rows but I was going to stick with it till I made it through.  

When I knit a new shape or something with a lot of texture, and considering my issues with letters and numbers on the same line piling up at the end of a row, I need to understand where the map of the pattern is taking me.  Then I can pick apart everything and put them back where they belong.  Once I understand the heading I can generally muddle that into a sweater.   

I get the Staffin now.  I get what I need to do to get nice increases in pattern.  I get how the design sets up and what goes where.  However...

I have to pull back to fix a glitch.  One side of the front neck currently has this weird gorchy (Klingon pimple) bump and the other a nice smooth slide into the center.  Plus there are some of my raglan increases are just utter crap.  They need to be redone. I am going to pull back to where the short rows start and make it better.  That is the lovely thing about knitting.  You can redo and redo till you get it right.  

It's one of the reasons I love knitting.  It is endless mulligans (golf redo).  You pull back and the yarn becomes a pile of endless possibilities.  That pile of yarn is utter forgivness for whatever we did.  Who couldn't love that.

Today is small thing day.  Time to work on socks and ponder the wonder of knitting.

A Victory

I feel really great this morning.  

I finished the Blue Cones sweater and it's a winner.

It fits just right.  It's a really lovely blue.  It's exactly the right length.  Yes it needs a good wash to get the spinning oils out but it is otherwise quite perfect.  I am weaving in ends as I write.  

I don't know how other knitters feel when they finish a garment but I feel deeply fundamentally satisfied.  I took these cones of string things and turned it into something that is uniquely mine.  I made every single stitch, even the error stitches and no one will ever knit a garment exactly like this again.  This is me, jumping up and down inside my heart.  No one can take this from me ever.  This is success.  This is achievement.  This is the pinnacle of everything I ever dreamed I could do and be.  I clothed myself, a very powerful thing. 

And when I put that sweater on, I am armored and protected from the rest of the world.  Knitted garments, handmade garments have always been that to me.  It's odd but I remember the first time I wore something knitted to work and stroked it during the day, and remembered who I was.  I needed that so badly then.  

Ah well.  That was then.  I am not that person in so many ways any longer, but parts of her remains. It is a layer of long ago memory that is only part of who I am now.    

I am going to put in a good bit of time working on My London Fog sweater today. That one is starting to feel as if it is working up fast.  Yay me.

Blue Sweater

Another sleeve!

Another day or two and it will be done.

I haven't made many posts the last while with chat.  I haven't been feeling too chatty I suppose.  I waffle between contentment and curmudgeonly ness.  Joy is easy to chat about.  Curmedgeonlyness?  I'm not sure that anybody needs more misery in the world right now.  I have no patience for the stupid thing people do and I am pretty sure  my anger isn't going to improve things.  

The other part is that though I feel grumpy as often as most people, it's easier now that I am older to just dump those feelings.  I just decide not to carry the misery.  I still care deeply about things and still feel the same sorrow and anger but I can put it down and put it away.  I choose to look for the good in the world.  I look at snowflakes and water drops and I contemplate their shape and size.  I play with bubbles in my bath.  I breath deep the smell of my coffee.  I watch the sun rise up and the world awaken every day.  It makes my life better.  

I have the power to pick what I will be in the world and today I will be a person with a nice cup of coffee and a sleeve on a pretty blue sweater.