Not feeling (kn)it?
I'm home today under the weather. I've escaped the dreadful
sickness that's going around, so it feels a little wimpy to stay home with
anything less than the plague, but I decided to spare my colleagues the
opportunity to catch my bug.
The upside: Knitting. Even though Interweave is a
knitting-friendly work environment-we told new colleagues that knitting in
meetings (or crocheting or beading or stitching) was a treasured part of our
corporate culture-it's a rare day when I get in some knitting time during
daylight hours. So here I am at home, working on my increasingly late Christmas
gift knitting.
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My knitting is a mess...
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Meet My Frog
Even though I don't have a frog in my throat, I do have a
frog in my knitting bag. As you can see, the sock in progress is singing, "Rip
it, rip it!" I've started this pair of socks (well, sock, for the time being)
about 5 times, and I've just ripped back to the beginning of the heel. My first
try at a stranded knitting pattern was just a complete mistake, and the second
and third were too tight. The fourth, with a brioche cuff, was too loose. I
cruised along to the instep and realized that there wasn't enough room for the
high instep of the recipient.There are now two main balls of yarn and two mini-balls, plus
yards and yards of curlicue yarn to straighten out. But even as I say
unladylike words under my breath, I remember what I've learned from some
amazing designers I know:
Good knitters rip.
I've seen my friend Charlene rip and reknit the same sweater
no fewer than three times when the look wasn't what she wanted. In designing
her Mork sweater (which I adore!), Julia Farwell-Clay tried and ripped and ripped again.
Until it was just right, she frogged.
(She also started with a swatch, which I believe in but
still can't bring myself to do every time . . . )
I believe in leaving little errors that no one will notice;
the mantra of my first knitting group was, "Could you see it from a prancing
pony?" But when I know I've gone down the wrong path, it always comes back to
ripping it out—in hopes that someday I will be a really, really good knitter.
Even when it makes my stomach hurt.