filling a giant mason jar full of knitted swatches
Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at.
I’ve set my sweater project aside for a couple moments to start working my way through a rather monumental pile of swatching.
If you’ve hung around here for awhile, you many recognize this bright green yarn as the the yarn in the shawl geometry book samples – and you would be correct.
I’m smack dab in the middle of the messy writing & swatching stage of a pretty massive sprucing that I thought up and planned out while wandering around the west coast.
So there are lots of inarticulate words, and ripping swatches flying around here at the moment. (With some true gems and easy knitting popping their heads up at times – just to keep things interesting).
Once I hit publish on this, I’m diving back into my cave made of word and yarn. Though, I woke up this morning with a rather spectacular head-cold, which is making holding more than five words in my brain at a time, (let alone stringing words together) a rather fuzzy task.
finding the flow in my sweater knitting again, and losing things in my storage unit
Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at.
This is has felt both interminably long, and impossibly short.
I came back from California with piles of juicy plans.* And this week has been half about helping those plans begin to land, and half about getting back into the flow of NYC (reconnecting with people, looking for gigs & projects, etc.)
*including plans for updating the Shawl Geometry Books, diving back into color theory, and delving deeper into sustainable & intentional wardrobe building.
Helping all these plans land has mostly looked like sitting in front of my computer typing away.
But sometimes, when my eyes start to cross, it looks like rummaging through my storage unit searching for the original shawl geometry swatches (haven’t found them yet – I know they’re in there somewhere. Or knitting away on my sweater.
My sweater, which ran into a bit of a snag over the weekend – the neckline & yoke were all sorts of funky. I sort of knew this when I cast on, but I was kind of hoping it’d just go away.
I know you’ll be shocked when I say, the problem didn’t just go away. In fact, it was screwing up how the sleeves were falling – so I couldn’t get an accurate sense of the sleeves until I fixed the yoke. I wrote about figuring all that out on Monday.
(Side note: taking photos of your own shoulder is really hard! Especially when your tripod is trapped in an unknown box, somewhere in the back of your storage unit.)
Then Monday evening I sat down, fixed the yoke, and am now back to working away on the first sleeve.
Still haven’t ordered that third cone of yarn, and I know I should. But I think I can at least get through the first sleeve using what’s left on the cone I have. (Now that I’ve type this – lets all watch it come around to bite me.)
What is the very next step?
I am at a place of stuck with my sweater.
The body is knit and I am halfway through the first sleeve.
I’m beginning to get an inkling that I will need a 3rd cone of yarn, but at the moment I still have a comfortable amount on the cone I’m working from.
I haven’t worked on it in a couple days – though I know exactly where I am, and what happens next.
I am halfway through the first sleeve.
The thing to do would be to continue down the sleeve.
That is the very next step.
But every time I reach for my knitting I hesitate. Something is not – quite – right.
I try my sweater on.
Trying on clothing you’ve made is a moment of truth. You’re body knows.
Your body knows the minute the fabric touches your skin, whether or not it works for you. Whether or not the time and effort have resulted in a garment you’ll love and wear.
Or not.
Your brain can second guess, and justify, and explain away the short cuts you took because dinner, or drinks, or dishes, or Instagram were calling.
Your skin can only feel the shortcut – not the justification.
It’s then that you know, if the shortcut worked. Or didn’t.
I try on my sweater with half a sleeve and know. Instantly.
I can feel the bind off at the hem – too tight. Fixable.
I can feel the shortness of the body – not quite long enough. Reaffirming the need for that 3rd cone.
I can feel the neck – wide. Low. Fussy.
And now we’ve hit the source of my knitting hesitation.
I started knitting too deep in the yoke. My cast on was too long.
So now the edge curls, and the sweater clings to my shoulders in a way that I am not looking for in this sweater.
I tried picking out the cast on and tried a tighter bind off. It’s a trick I’ve used a couple times before. In this instance, it helped, but did not fix the problem.
Sigh.
And so – the very next step is not “finish the sleeve.”
It is now “fix the yoke.”
Break the yarn.
Put the sleeve on a holder.
Pick up the neckline.
Reattach the yarn.
Fix the yoke.
(Find a 3rd cone.)
Return to the sleeve.
