May madness
Oh, May… one of my favorite months! The weather is summery (for a few days at least) and I’ve been struck with a mad hunger for summer knits. I say mad because I have knit various lacy tops and cottony shrugs and every time I swear off all that nonsense and rededicate myself to wool. I do not particularly enjoy knitting with stringy plant fibers that don’t give or spring or bounce or plump up agreeably to make your work look better than it is. And the garments themselves tend to get irrevocably baggy and formless, which is not a look that does my figure any favors. But I found myself trolling Ravelry and drooling over this and that, and oh, yes, this again… troll, troll, troll; drool, drool, drool. And I do have a fair amount of cotton in the stash… enough to make any and all of these…
You’re going to be so proud of me. I didn’t cast on a single one of those lovelies. Why? Because there are some shamefully neglected items in the knitterly sag wagon Chez Garter. Namely this: the Frost Flowers Pullover, ignominiously zzz’ing away at the very bottom of my Ravelry page. The date I put on it there would lead you to believe I’ve only been working on it for two years. This is certainly a bald-faced lie. I know I’ve had the yarn since 2005, the year the pattern came out in Vogue Knitting. It was never a favorite project. Let’s just see what I’ve had to say about it on the blog during that time:
“I hereby swear it’s the last time you’ll see me knit with such an unnatural fiber.”
“If I hadn’t been so wet behind the ears as a knitter when I took this project on, I would have substituted a decent cotton at least.”
“…afraid this yarn was going to look like a pox victim knit up… it’s more like the hide of some desert-dwelling feline…. the African Plastic Sand Leopard…”
You can see how the spark never really kindled between us. Trendsetter Spiral and I have been on a four-year bad date, the kind that ends with an unenthusiastic “Well, we have each other’s number…” and you know the relationship is going nowhere. But I am a knitter of integrity, dammit, and I still like the design, and the sag wagon basket is overflowing and spitting out remnants of yarn balls and forgotten swatches, and it’s far too warm to work on the Gee’s Bend blanket that’s also in there with all its attending Manos del Uruguay. I’m getting back on the horse and finishing this thing if it kills me.
Cue Chariots of Fire music.
Posted: May 17th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Would Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool be cool enough for those summer patterns? I’ve been knitting a sweater with it and it feels really nice.
Posted: May 17th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Hmmm… four years. Why don’t you just kill it? Give the yarn to someone who would actually like it!
Posted: May 17th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Oops, I just saw what you said about having lots of cotton yarn in your stash. I’m not really into knitting with cotton either.
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 4:34 am
Maybe a litte “Gonna Fly Now” aka The Theme from Rocky as well? Just think how good it will feel to run up those (metaphorhical) museum steps and celebrate victory over man-made fibers.
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 5:35 am
Oh, what a riot, first thing on a Monday morning! An inspiration to knitter’s everywhere! *getting up on soapbox* “It’s just this kind of determination, of drive, of spunk, and of plurk that MAKE KNITTER’S, WELL…KNITTERS! Nothing can deter their need to create! Bad patterns? Bad yarns? No problem! There are ways around those small hurdles- and the knitter’s will find those ways!”
(seriously, thanks for the laugh this morning, and good luck with the sweater. You will have a great sense of satisfaction when it is complete…but remember, too, that life’s too short to not enjoy your knitting!)
Marissa
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 5:43 am
I totally understand this impulse: I just finished a cotton sweater I’d had kicking around for something like two and a half years: it was on size 0 and 1 needles, boring as can be…but I won. Ha! But knitting can be a competitive sport, in which you are compelled, somehow, to win,to beat the yarn or the pattern. Some projects are just like that.
Not all, thank goodness.
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 6:22 am
I’m on the finish or frog it ravelry group — great support there! I frogged something and gave away all the yarn — literally put it in a box and mailed it to a friend. Wow, not only did it feel GREAT but I actually won a monthly prize on the “frog it” board! 🙂 I finished a several years old lmkg chevron scarf that I LOVE but just wasn’t dedicating any time to. That felt good too.
Good luck with it!
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 7:07 am
good luck!! You can do it
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 7:38 am
LOL, what dedication! Good luck finishing it up.
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 8:52 am
You can do it! I agree–neither bast nor synthetic fibers can match the squishy goodness of wool. But the pullover pattern has great potential, and I’m sure your Frost Flowers will be a lovely rendition.
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 9:42 am
I am mostly with you on the knitting with cotton. It just isn’t as friendly on my hands, though I have knit a few things that were fine and others that were nearly impossible. I have to wonder if it is the brand of cotton that is doing me in.
Unrelatedly, I have been slowly coming to the realization that while I enjoy making the pullovers I don’t wear them as often as I wear the cardigans I make.
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
You are far more dedicated than I…my unfinished projects are still lingering at the bottom of my sweater chest, unlikely to be picked up again for quite some time.
I totally understand the feelings towards cotton. I’ve rid my stash of all my cotton, since knitting with it kills my hands. So, no summer knits for me (except for lightweight shawls, perhap), but what I love are the wooly sweaters anyway, so that’s ok!
Posted: May 18th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
There’s a difference between stick-to-it-iveness and masochism. Swap it, I say!
Posted: May 19th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Godspeed, my friend.
Posted: May 19th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I know that tone in your words. It ends with “It’s the principle of the thing!,” right? That has gotten me through a few knits I would never have finished otherwise, and was glad that I did. I know you’ll be polka-dot jerseying through this one very soon.
Did you purchase the road bike, and if so, are you enjoying riding it? Our weather has been too wet and windy for me to do any riding, unfortunately.
The Emily sweater is beautiful, and looks great on your sister in law!
Posted: May 20th, 2009 at 11:47 am
“4 year long bad date”? Hi-LAR-ious!
Posted: May 20th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
You know how it is… you meet a yarn online, you give it your address, and then it shows up and it doesn’t look like its profile picture and it doesn’t seem like you’re going to be all that compatible, but you figure you should still give it a chance, because your mama taught you manners and hey, you never know where things might go with someone who isn’t your usual type…