KnitLust

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 finished the snood the other night, washed it, and presented it to my daughter. That’s always a nervous moment for a knitter: that moment when you find out if your creation will be loved and your efforts worth it, or if you will get that stiffly polite but transparent “thank you”. No danger of that with a toddler, however — if she didn’t love it, she’d just drop it on the floor and walk away.

But, she loved it. She popped it over her head and wore it all day the first day. Today, she popped it over her head, then kept taking it off and pushing her fingers through the stitches appreciatively — well, appreciatively or mischievously — and then holding it arms outstretched and stretching it as wide as it would go. It’s not the best treatment for a hand-knitted item, but it’s a toddler’s way of showing love.

I’m not happy with the seam: I did it in haste when the baby had just gone to bed and I knew I really ought to get my head down as soon as possible, so it’s very sloppy. I may tidy it up at a later point. You know, in some of my two-small-children spare time.

But for now, it doesn’t matter. She loves it. It looks great with her coat, and it keeps her neck warm. I am happy enough, and so is she.

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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This hat is swiftly turning into a race to see if I can get to the end of it before the yarn runs out. I have 68 stitches on the needle and am decreasing 24 stitches every 4 rows…

Do you think I’ll make it?

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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?

Twice now I’ve had to unravel and reknit the sleeve of the chunky cardi I’ve designed! The reasons are so stupid that I’d be ashamed to admit them publicly, if it weren’t for the fact that I can chalk it up to having a baby who keeps me up half the night.

The first time, I just plain miscounted the gauge. Hard to believe, but I did, and so every calculation was wrong. I’d only knit about 15 rows when I realised something was amiss, so it wasn’t that painful to start over.

I reworked the maths and cast on again. But this time, I just wrote the wrong number down, and so was increasing ever four rows instead of every six. A little discrepancy that ends up making a big difference after a while. Again, I spotted the mistake, ripped it all out, and we started over. I’ve just cast on again and completed row one. Third time’s the charm, eh?

But look at that lovely wool… look at that colour! You can see why I am so keen to make something lovely out of it.

And this is good for me — I need this discipline, this lesson in patience. It’s not about giving up and moving on to the next thing. I am a new knitter. It’s about perseverance, patience, commitment, commitment, commitment.

The choker turned out exactly as I’d envisioned it! I am so pleased! And, by gum, I finished it! Ok, I know it’s only a little 2-day project, but it’s probably the first project I’ve actually stuck with and finished in years.

And, would you believe, even that was an effort! I got so excited about the chunky cardi that I really lost all interest in this choker yesterday. I found myself ready to turn my back on it and just run away with that cardi — just like my old ways — even though there was only about 15 minutes’ worth of work left to do. Honestly, if it hadn’t been a gift for someone else — and if I hadn’t told her I was making it — I probably would have just forgotten about the choker in my lust the for the next project (…and the next and the next and the next).

But I made myself pick it up today, and I finished it. And I am chuffed to bits with the way its turned out. I hope to take it round to Gaynor tomorrow. I want her to have it before she goes into labour. Not that I think it will help in the labour or that she’ll wear it during labour… Just that once a woman has a baby, everything is suddenly all about the baby, and I want her to have a little something that is about her first. Little things like that are important when you’re only get a couple of hours’ sleep at night!

I can’t control it! I can’t control it! I’ve cast on a new project — another new project!

I haven’t finished the baby’s cardigan yet. I haven’t finished the choker. But all day today, I’ve been fantasizing about a cardigan I could knit with the yarn I bought on our honeymoon 4 years ago. It’s a beautiful maroon chunky wool that I knit into a jumper almost immediately we got home but, when I sewed the pieces together and tried it on, I just didn’t like the fit. It’s sat shoved in a cupboard ever since, waiting for me to rescue it, rework it, piece it back together, love it again… I never did. I thought about it now and again, but I never went back to it.

I’ve bought a new skirt that it would go beautifully with, if only it were a slouchy cardigan instead of the jumper I’ve knit it into. All day today, that yarn has been swimming around in my head. …If I unpicked the jumper… …if I knit it up again into the cardi… …it wouldn’t take long…

Thirty minutes ago, I found myself on the floor with my knitting notebook and my tape measure, working out this new cardigan design. It will be knit in one piece from side to side, starting with one cuff and ending with the other. I told myself that I would just draw up the schematic and do the maths, just to get it out of my system. I had the design in 10 minutes and, before I knew what had happened, my hands had grabbed the last intact ball of wool and cast on.

I’ve knit 8 rows already — it’s officially a project. I can’t believe I’ve done this. I now have 3 projects on the go. I’m going back to my old ways and it’s spiraling out of control again. I have issues. Is there a 12-step program for knitters?

I’ve taken a little break from the baby’s cardigan to start a… I know! I know! I said I’d be committed to starting and finishing one project before I go running off with another. I know! But I have a good reason. No, really, I do!

My friend Gaynor, who runs Head in the Clouds Handbags, made me a beautiful nappy bag. A week later, I had to tell her there was a problem with it… it was showing up my handbag something fierce, and I needed to buy a new handbag off her to go with my new nappy bag. We went round to her house and she got all her stock out for me to choose from. I found one I liked, but it wasn’t quite right. I took it anyway, but also described the bag I ideally had in mind. Gaynor disappeared for a minute, and then walked in the room holding a bag that was almost exactly as I described. She explained that it was her own bag, but she’d only used it a few times and I was welcome to it. And she wouldn’t let me pay for it! I asked if it was difficult to add a clasp to it and, before I knew it, my 9-month-pregnant friend was at her sewing machine, picking apart and re-stitching a bag that I wasn’t even going to pay for! I hadn’t meant to put her to so much trouble and I felt terrible, so I wanted to make something to say thank you. Hence, I am breaking from the cardigan for just a little while to make something for her. I think it’s a valid reason.

Gaynor’s got a really distinctive style — very cool, very feminine — and her clothes and accessories are always just so, down to the smallest detail. I thought a feminine choker would be something she’d quite like. I decided to make one with a few knitted flowers cascading from a basic band. I’ve styled the flowers on Nicky Epstein’s scarf on the cover of Vogue Knitting’s 25th Anniversary issue. I realised the band would work better if it were crocheted …except that I don’t know how to crochet. Time to teach myself then!

I looked up crochet instructions on the Lion website and spent an evening getting to grips with it. It was difficult! I was using a small crochet hook (3mm) and an unforgiving yarn (Rowan’s Linen Drape) but, after attempt after attempt, I finally mastered double crochet and made a plain 3-stitch band.

I’ve made two out of three flowers to go on it. I’m going to have them off-center, falling vertically from the band. I can’t believe how easy and quick they were to make! I have half a mind to adorn everything with these flowers! I’m already planning flower-covered hats for my daughters, a flowery hair clip for me… But there’s the lust again, running away with me. I’ve already broken with my good intentions by starting this choker: I must keep things under control. I’ll do the choker, and then go back to the baby’s cardigan. When I’m done with that, then I can let the knitlust lead me on to a new project. But not until then.