You know what we haven't talked about in a long time? Knitting, that's what. This is because knitting has not been bringing me very much joy lately.
Let me show you the things I have been stuck on, and perhaps it will get me unstuck.I can't remember -- did I show you the rectangularized pandemic blanket? Google tells me that I did, back before the ends were woven in. The thing I have been stuck on is deciding whether it needs a border. It has been niggling at me. But as of this weekend I have officially decided that it does not need a border, or at least not in this stage of its existence. We will call it finished, though it may be a temporary flavor of finished. It is so cozy and hefty and pleasing on chilly days. It is less useful in the 90-degree weather we have been having recently.
Here is another pandemic project, which I am going to rename the Make The Best Of It stole. I bought the kit during my fall 2020 sabbatical, right after I submitted paper #2.
I was hoping it would be a fluffy cloud of medium-challenging lacy goodness. I loved the idea of subtle striping and interspersed stockinette panels and two different lace patterns, because all of those things break up the monotony that is baked into a sizable lace stole. But there are a bunch of unsatisfactory things about it:
- a chart with mistakes in it
- sections of true lace knitting (i.e., pattern on both sides) with directional decreases. BLEH, SSPs are the WORST decrease and they ABOUND in this stole.
- an unpredictable pattern in the easier lace sections
- colors that aren't quite me and that don't quiiiiite work with each other (to my admittedly picky eye) because of pandemic supply chain issues
- instructions from the designer to do the hardest parts in the yarns with halo -- a recipe for eyestrain for this middle-aged knitter
- a lace pattern that looks like marching ladybugs, in a creepy-crawly way and not in a charming way
- failure on the designer's part to throw in any right-side purl stitches, so it is going to curl like nobody's business after I am done investing all these hours in it
So for...hm...20 months now I have been working on it grumpily for a while and then stuffing it into the Timeout Bag when the eyestrain gets too annoying. But I am only 150 rows from the end. I will feel happier if it is done than if it is wadded up in the Timeout Bag, so I will keep nibbling away at it.
Here is still another pandemic project, because this stinking pandemic has been going on for so long that all of my current knitting is pandemic knitting:
This was the third project in Ysolda Teague's 2020 Colourwork Club, and it is a pain. So much finishing. I never get Second Sock Syndrome but I have a whopping case of Second Mitten Syndrome going on here. Maybe it's First Mitten Syndrome, because I keep picking up the first mitten, thinking about how little I want to deal with the finishing (the lining + flip-top combo (shown below) is a nice idea, but it's going to mean a bunch of annoying tidying up), and setting it back down again. Maybe I will take the first mitten to jury duty tomorrow, where they say I cannot have knitting needles but make no mention of tapestry needles.
Next up there are these socks, which have been waiting for a month to have their four ends woven in after spending more than a year on the needles. That is a long time to procrastinate on a 10-minute task.
There is one not-knitting project, a little crocheted amigurumi fox. My niece picked out an amigurumi kit for me a few Christmases ago, and in August of 2020 (again with the lingering projects from the early months of the pandemic!) I made its head and nose and one ear. The trouble with crocheting is that I do it so infrequently that I always have to restart slowly and painstakingly, giving it my full attention. In the past few days I have added a body and a tail to my small collection of fox parts. We shall see how it goes. The jury duty guidelines don't say anything about crochet hooks either.
And then there is the last project, the Extremely Nascent Sweater Back Laden With Sad Memories. It is also from the fall semester of 2020, when Marie's roommate got COVID and I was overflowing with mom worry. I could not speed up vaccine production, I could not make either of their immune systems work any more efficiently, but BY GUM I could plan to swathe my child in Scottish wool.
And then Marie's roommate got better and Marie did not come down with COVID and I thought to myself, "Do I really want to knit an entire sweater on size 3 needles? And does Marie really want a sweater that will have to be hand-washed or dry-cleaned?" And now, 20 months later, I do not remember exactly where I was going with this sweater back. I was using Ann Budd's book of top-down sweaters, but there will be a fair amount of face-scrunching and head-scratching required if I am going to pick up where I left off, or perhaps switch it over into a sweater for me, since I don't mind hand-washing hand-knits and these colors suit me better than they suit Marie.
Maybe I'll just frog it, huh? What's your vote -- frog pond or face-scrunching?
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