Good Places

While all the things to knit in the future are calling to me and waiting for me, I did the responsible thing and stuck with what is on my needles.  The London Fog continues.

I am on to the last section of stockinette before the last rounds of garter.  I feel pretty good about this because I had no idea if I was going to have enough yarn.  There will be just enough yarn to get to the length I want and a skein and a half for sleeves.  It's a good place to be.

Avoidance and Resolution

I had a profound revelation yesterday about one of my projects.  I was watching Bobbie of the Inspired Knitting podcast yesterday.  She did a 2 part Frog or Finish podcast and it was really interesting to watch her assessment of the WIPs.  Somewhere in there, she spoke and it made me think about my own avoidance troubles with a project I wasn't quite into. 

I have loved my colourwork Scandinavian Star vest pattern since I started knitting.  I planned for it and started to knit it several years ago.  It was one of the projects I was going to knit and finish this winter.     I have been avoiding both my older colourwork projects.  It isn't that I was avoiding them, I realized.  It was that I was avoiding one of them.  The Star Vest is knitted bottom up and that is what it was all about.  I utterly loathe bottom up sweaters.  Utterly and completely.  

The idea of spending time knitting with no idea if it's going to fit seems ludicrous to me.  It might work ok for many but I have fit issues.  My upper body, shoulder to bustline is an inch shorter than average.  I have a large difference from my upper bust measurement to my full bust measurement.  My hip to waist ratio is way off average and has always been an issue when I sewed plus it is short.  And last, the distance from underarm to hip is several inches shorter than average.  All these are things are hard to adjust and adapt if you are starting from the bottom.  Starting from the top means I can try it on as I go to get the fit I want and need.  (All the same issues arise in sweaters knitted in pieces).  No matter what the pattern says.  

So I thought about the vest

and then I very quickly ripped it out.  

I left the bottom bit for now.  It was such a twisty mess.  There was a huge difference between pulling back the stuff knitted in the new way I learned versus the older way I did it.  It will be there if I need it to finish whatever I make.

That job done and that weight off my mind, I set out to find a new pattern for the yarn.  I really do want to knit the yarn.  It's Cascade 220 and who doesn't love that.  

Opps, there I go.  I have a sweater plan already and it will soon be underway.  I think I need to finish London Fog first.  And there is also the gorgeous Hiraeth to do.  Plus that new Staffin.  Yum.  So much to knit and so many more to cast on.  It's a great kind of life, this knitting life.   

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.