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As I said when I started this blog, I never finish anything, knitting-wise. I have hundreds, thousands… nay, millions of unfinished projects lurking in dark corners of the house, all hoping that the sun will shine on them again one day. It’s just get so excited by trying new things — new stiches, new patterns, new shaping, new yarn — that it’s impossible to resist until I’ve finished whatever I’m currently working on, and I find myself casting on something new — just to see — before the current project is even cool on the needles. And that’s ok, because I don’t knit for the final product — I’m a process knitter. It matters less to me to be that I come away with something at the end than that I just enjoy the knitting. The click-clack of the needles, and feel of the yarn in my hands, the smell of the wool, and the rhythm of the stitches… That’s what it’s about for me.
But when I saw Mary-Heather’s Simple Things shawlette, I wanted it. I wanted it. And that was a strange sensation — and one I didn’t trust. But I realised the project was small enough and quick enough that I might actually have a shot at getting it done before I moved on, like a drifter, to the next shiny thing that caught my eye.
No pattern available yet, but I studied Mary-Heather’s photos and reckoned I could work out at least a good approximation of the pattern. And so I looked through my stash for some decent yarn to try it out with, and cast on.
The funny thing is, I didn’t like the yarn as I was knitting. I wasn’t sure I liked it in the ball, but the more I knit with it, the less I liked it. The colours jarred. And pooled. It felt scratchy. It was too marroon-y, and I didn’t like the yellow or the orange bits. Time and again I thought to myself that I would just rip it all out and start over with another yarn… but I never had one to hand at that moment, so I carried on.
I finished it on the way home from MDSW and here’s the crazy thing about this scarf: as soon as I put it on, I loved the yarn. Loved it! Couldn’t stop looking at it! Then I took it off and looked at it and… I didn’t like it. Put it back on, and loved it… Took it off again, and didn’t like it.
And, I still don’t like it. Until I put it on — and then I love it. I just totally don’t get that.
I’ve got my knitting mojo back! I decided I wanted to use some yarn from my stash to make a lacy dress for E2, and found a pattern in KnitSimple that inspired me and gave me direction. I had new design ideas bouncing around in my head all last night. Went to bed hardly being able to wait for morning to come so I could get started!
And then I spotted an interesting design on Ravelry for an entirely different project — an intriguing scarf. There’s no pattern for it, but I studied the pictures… and studied and studied… until I think I figured out how it was done, and now all I want to do is cast on and see if I’m right. A whole month, totally dry and then… BAM! My mojo is back!
That’s the knitlust.
I haven’t been writing about my fibre-crafts lately, but I have been taking a lot of comfort in them. There has been so much going on in my life lately — an international move is disruptive, to say the least — that the quick moments I grab here and there to do something quiet, creative, rhythmic, and calming have been absolute sanity-savers for me.
As my life has begun to fall apart, so has my control over the tendancy I have to give into my knitlust and start project after project with no rhyme or reason, and without ever managing to finish anything. In all the stress and difficulty of the past few months, I have somehow managed to start so many things that I can hardly remember them all, let alone keep track of them …and let alone make any progress.
But I desperately need to regain some order, both in my fibre-crafts and in my life in general, so I will begin here. In the next few days, I will begin documenting my projects and my progress — and weeding out those that were created less out of genuine interest and more in a wild attempt to soothe my stress at the time.
And once that’s done, and I can see clearly again what I have and what I want to work on, I hope to make some good progress, and find myself calmed again by that lovely sense of satisfaction that comes from accomplishing a long-standing project instead of the hyped-up feeling that comes from diving — lustily — into a million new ones.
It’s killing me, but I’ve missed every one of the Knitting and Stitching Shows this year. This weekend is the Harrogate show — the last one — and last year, we were THERE! I didn’t think we’d still be in the country, so I didn’t organise for us to go. How I wish I had!
It is so worth the trip. Miles and miles (so it seemed, anyway) of pure knitting heaven. There were fashion shows, knitting-as-art exhibits, classes and workshops, the graduation pieces of fashion students from universities all over the country. And the retail booths — hundreds of retail booths — selling the best stuff from knitting shops up and down the country: yarn and needles and bags and on and on and on. It is packed, it is tactile, it is colourful, it is bliss.
If you get the chance to go next year, GO!
It’s every knitter’s secret fantasy, isn’t it? To run your own yarn shop… to be surrounded by all that wool and silk and cotton… and lovely wooden needles and all those fun bits and bobs that go along with knitting. To make your life’s work out of your life’s passion — what joy!
Here’s your chance: Yarnsmith is up for sale. Brooke is having her second baby soon and will be focusing on that for the time being. Here are all the details from her email:
Many of you may already know that yarnsmith is for sale. I’m expecting another child next March and have decided that I don’t have the mental or physical space for it any more. This is a great opportunity for anyone who is interested in a viable business that will allow them the flexibility of working on their own from home.
The sale includes £3,500 worth of stock, a fully functioning website, a recognised brand including electronic logo, stationary, and advertising designs, and an existing customer base and mailing list. The asking price is £6,500.
If you are interested, please contact me by e-mail on brooke@yarnsmith.co.uk.
In the meantime, we are still taking orders on remaining stock by e-mail or phone. Everything is 20% off of the website price and payment is by cheque or paypal.
Thank you,
Brooke McConochy
www.yarnsmith.co.uk
For those of you who aren’t in a position to buy your yarn-shop dream right now, don’t miss that 20% discount tucked in amongst the details above.
Brooke, I wish you the best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy and with the birth. You are in for quite a ride, but it’s a wonderful one!
I hate working on circular needles! You’d think I’d love it, with my shoulder problems and the fact that circular needles reduce the weight of the knitting pulling on your back and shoulders, but I don’t. They drive me nuts. The needles never sit straight for me; the circular bit is always kinking; the needle bit is always too short so I have to keep my hands bunched together to make my stitches; the ball of yarn keeps migrating into the center of the circle and then out and then in. For me, kills the joy of knitting …and kills the knitlust.
I knit all the pieces (back, sleeves, and fronts) of the Classic Baby Cardigan as far up as the armpit and they are now transferred onto a circular needle to that the yoke can be knit as one piece. I really enjoyed knitting each individual piece on my lovely wooden needles with the bobbly tops. Now that the whole thing is on circulars, I find myself avoiding working on it. I will persevere — not least because with each row now the number of stitches decreases and so goes that much faster.
But it just goes to show how important good equipment is to whole knitting process. It helps me to justify my ever-growing collection of wooden needles and my mountains of unused-but-beautiful yarn. It’s about quality, people, QUALITY!
I picked up the Holiday issue of Vogue Knitting magazine* yesterday. Mmmmmmmm… now, that gets the knitlust flowing through my veins. It’s a joy just to page through.
VK reviews a local yarn shop every issue and, this time, it was Tricoter in Seattle. It just looks like such a welcoming place for a knitter. How I wish I’d known about it before — I’ve been to Seattle several times visiting family, and I could have disappeared to there for an afternoon when all that family-ish-ness got too much! The trouble would be, of course, that I would return that evening poor as a church mouse and with enough yarn to fill another suitcase.
I know I have a reader or two from Seattle. Have you ever been to Tricoter? Is it as nice as it looks?
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* The Vogue Knitting magazine website is down at present, and has been months. I used to check it regularly for previews of coming issues, pattern corrections, intriguing discussions, and just plain inspiration. When oh when are they going to fix it?!?!?
I have stitched up the hat and it looks fab, but it doesn’t fit so well. The circumference at the edge is too big for the depth (height) of it, so it looks a bit skullcap-ish. I should have knitted for about one more inch before I started doing my decreases.
It is absolutely, completely the fault of my knitlust. I started the hat without doing a proper gauge swatch (only 2″x2″). And I cast on with a yarn that was gosh-darned pretty but which I didn’t really have enough of, so I felt pressured to start decreasing as soon as possible. I should have taken more time… I should have waited until I could get to the shop and buy enough yarn… But I am helpless to stop it. Once an idea comes into my head, the knitlust takes over and it won’t let me be at peace until I have started working on it. If I don’t, it pervades my every moment, my every thought. I even knit through the night in my dreams. Once the knitlust gets hold of me, I have no choice — I just have to start knitting, ready or not.
Never mind, I will find a solution of some sort for this hat. I could weave some elastic into the edge (cuff? band?) of it, or maybe just some of the yarn to make a drawstring. It might even fit her a little better when her head has grown into it (I made it a bit big because these kids, they just keep growin’!). It’s too pretty not to fix somehow.
Pictures to follow soon.
I have finished the hat with yarn to spare! All I need to do now is sew the seam and it’s good to go. I might make a little flower or two to go on it as well.
But sewing-up is my most hated knitting task. I will make myself do it, but I bet the hat sits idle for a few days whilst I cast on something else and start indulging the knitlust first. What a naughty knitter!
And you know what? I already have. I bought some lovely pink wool on Friday to knit my daughter a snood to go with her new coat that her grandmother sent her. I realised that, although it’s a lovely warm coat, the chill wind was whipping around her neck and down across her shoulders, so I decided to knit something to plug that gap. A scarf will get lost or dragged through the mud, but a snood will sit there perfectly. I cast it on about 10 minutes ago.
I would have knit it in the round, but I don’t have the right size circular or double-pointed needles. So, I’ve gone all creative and am knitting it side-to-side, using an open cast-on, which I will then pick up and knit back into the last row.
It’s lovely chunky yarn, so I’m hoping to knit this up quickly. It’s too chilly for my daughter to have to wait long!.
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I can’t stop myself when an idea starts swimming around in my head. I have cast on a hat for my younger daughter. It was the yarn overs in those flowers that got me thinking 
about it. I just enjoyed doing yarn-overs and wanted to continue, wanted to do a piece that was entirely yarn-overs from one side to the other, and it seemed like the pattern it creates would really suit a baby’s hat, so I cast on and just started knitting. I will make up the design as I go along. I don’t even know if I have enough of this yarn to complete it, but I am just enjoying the knitting. It’s such a pleasure to see the lacy result falling from the needle.
The cardigan is on hold at the moment as I indulge my desire to knit this hat. I will go back to it soon, I’m sure. I’m afraid I find myself a bit off the cardigan because I’m knitting it on plastic needles, and I just don’t enjoy working on plastic nearly as much as wood. Perhaps I should just get myself some wooden 12mm needles and be done with it! If the joy is in the knitting, then shouldn’t I be knitting on needles that fill me with joy?
