Woe or Not

I spent the day yesterday frogging and reknitting.  It could have been soul destroying but it wasn't.  I am not working on my Mashup Top.  I am working on the cotton t shirt.

I put up this picture of the start of the top yesterday, and the more I looked at it, the more I did not like it.  I started out thinking wide stripes but I did not like the way the colours looked.  They were ... wrong somehow.  Too blocky?  That is not what I wanted.  Not at all.  I ripped back to row three at the very start of the neckline.  

If wide stripes were not working then how about narrow, two row stripes?  

There.  That's better.  That's what these colours need.  I want it to say is it a white t-shirt with cream stripes or a cream t-shirt with white stripes.  That's exactly right.  

And then I had to rip back a few rows.  I intend to machine wash this top.  That means it will shrink.  I want the shoulders a bit wider to account for that.  I am also going to make it longer because the length will likely shorten a lot.  

Meanwhile I have a couple inches to do on the back and then on to fronts.  Worsted cottons knit up so nice and fast.

A Spring Dig

That.  Was.  A.  Good.  Day.  I cleaned my room and then I dug in yarn.  It brings me such joy when I dig through it all. 

I think of my stash as sweater quantities.  That has always been how I think of it.  It was a measure of what I needed in my life.  Pre thyroid medication, I was cold.  Deeply inside me cold that seldom was fixed by wearing one warm garment.  Wool was like a hug and it helped. That's why, in my mind my stash all looks like this.

Nice tidy bags of sweater quantities all sorted and ready for use.  But...

There is lots of this.  Single skeins or 2 or 3 of brilliant colours that burst from the boxes.   There are about 7 boxes like this.  Lace weights and fingering weights and all sorts of lovely things.  The idea that all my yarn is sweater quantities is ludicrous.  

Even though all my yarn is now in the closet and I no longer have an inspiration cabinet (it's a second sweater chest) it all fits in the closet.

Two of the boxes have significant space in them so next fall, I will probably merge them.  By then, there may be space in another box.  Who knows.

I forgot to put away ant of my winter sweater yarns but I did pull out a few yarns that I want to use for this summers crop of sweaters.  

The green is for Rebecca Clow's Airundle.  I thought very seriously about buying the perfect green yarn but I have this.  The crisp green is my current colour obsession, FYI.  This is close to perfect and it will do.  It is some St Denis Boreale, a sadly discontinued yarn that I will hold double.   I found a couple skeins to use for repairs on current sweaters too.  I pulled these all out to set up for projects.  Unfortunately I am out of the bags I like to use for pre projects, so I have to do something about that.  

I did rearrange the stash boxes so that the bins of cottons are easily reachable.  There are a few other yarns I want tops from before summer is done but I can't pull out the entire stash.  Well, I could but you know how it is.  

And then I went to have some tea and knit.  I know I have two very recently started projects but my knitting heart is not into them right now.  So this happened.

I have a giant box of Handicrafter cotton for pin loom weaving dishcloths, and one giant ball was pure white.  There was also some cotton yarn from a frogged project in the box.  It struck me that they would make a great speedy summer t shirt.  

And so it goes.  A new knit and yarn to dream with.  What a lovely thing...even if it snowed again last night and covered the rotten snow with a blanket of soft white.  It would be pretty in October.  But April?  Not so much.

Discombobulated

It was an odd sort of weekend.  I wanted to do something but everything I did was not right.  I didn't want that or this or anything.  I was discombobulated and unsettled and out of sorts.  

Friday I was knitting on my Mashup Top.  I was feeling good about that but then I saw I dropped a stitch 5 rows below.  I fixed it once and then saw that I missed the first of the dropped rows of yarn so I did it again.  Then this.

I set it aside.  I can't do repairs like this if I am frustrated.  I'm not ready to do it today either.  

I picked up my Kauni sweater and worked desultorily on that.  My heart wasn't in it so there isn't much progress.  Even then progress was slow because I am at the counting part where I needed to know my stitch number and gauge to check if I am ready to split for sleeves.  

What I really feel like doing is a deep stash dive.  The thought of that appeals to me.  I can pull out what I need to make repairs on a few sweaters and I can see what appeals to me for spring and summer garments.  I can also put some of my winter sweater making away.  It seemsmy desires were bigger than my knitting speed. As usual.

I did come across a movie that I really enjoyed.  It as an old one and really great if you are a Father Brown fan.  The movie was The Detective with Alec Guiness.  It is the closest representation of the Father Brown to the books in character.  In my opinion of course.  It's a gem of a movie.  

And that's it for today.  I have to go find my vacuum now.  Before the stash dive, I must deep clean the floors.