Let’s talk a bit more about that Bavarian Twist sweater. I really must thank everyone who commented about it – reading all of your words really helped me pull my own feelings about it into focus. The number one point that hit home was that if I’m in the mood for some mindless knitting, then goshdarnit I deserve some mindless knitting. I work hard all day and night, and if in the end I want to spend my precious few minutes of free time working on the blankie, then why should I feel guilty? I shouldn’t. I resolve that from now on, I won’t.
That said, I’m not going to put the sweater away or rip it out or anything, either. I’m going to keep working on it as I have the time and energy, and give myself permission to finish it when ever it happens to get finished. There are several reasons why.
First, a big portion of the joy I get out of knitting is the having done it part. The finishing, the looking at it and thinking “Wow. I made this.” I’m already halfway to that point on this project, and it’s only going to get easier once the sleeves are done and joined into the body.
Second, adding more projects to the UFO list isn’t going to help any either. Yes, it is fun to dream about starting a sweater for myself, but the reality of swatching and thinking it through and doing the relatively complicated colorwork at the top is going to put me right back in the same place as I’m at with the current sweater pretty darn fast. When I’m honest with myself, the problem isn’t the project – it’s all the other pressures in my life that I’m really whining about. Mostly.
Third, and this is a big thing that I didn’t mention in my previous post. Something I didn’t really think about much till I really contemplated the idea of putting the thing away and getting it back out later. Here’s what the “pattern” for this sweater looks like:
It is a couple of sheets of scrawled schematics and cryptic notes on graph paper, plus a sheet of literally cut-and-pasted copies of graphs from Bäuerliches Stricken by Lisl Fanderl – graphs that are also covered with scrawled notes, and which I am only following in the way that makes sense to my current thinking. Graphs that do not resemble any other knitting graphs we’ve ever seen outside of Bavaria. Graphs that I had to call Schoolhouse Press and talk to Meg herself in order to figure out how to read, even with the key. But it’s always pleasant having an excuse to call and speak with Meg. If I put this project away, I will forget all the little nuances that my brain is holding onto. I will loose all the little details that I don’t even know are important, and I will have to eventually pick it all back up, pore over my insane notes, and hope that I can make some kind of sense out of it later. yeah. good luck with that.
I mean, I do write knitting patterns sometimes. I know that with the right effort, I could come up with a well-written pattern that would hold the hand of a novice working this sweater without ever having knit a cable in his or her life. I’m not going to do that or anything close to it, though, because these sweaters are meant to be one-of-a-kind pieces for only my girls. That, and the yarn I’m using has been discontinued for 20 years and I’m certainly not going to knit a THIRD copy of this sweater just so I can have a sample in a currently-available yarn.
So there we go. I’m going to keep knitting on it at least enough so that I can remember what the heck I’m doing, but I am going to try to not stress out about it. I really think things will get better once the sleeves are done – I don’t like working these dinky little rounds where I have to figure out the next round every few minutes.
Switching gears, Joan asked for some help with her EZ Gull Stitch sweater, and I aim to please. Here is a picture of Julie wearing the one I knit her a few years ago out of Koigu. It really is a charming little sweater, although I think a solid color would have shown off the stitch pattern much better.
Elizabeth’s directions are, as she puts it, pithy. Joan is at the point in the pattern (page 29 in my copy of Knitter’s Almanac) where it says “Place remaining 92 sts on needle, knitting up 4X7 sts at the cast-on sleeve sts, and continue with pattern….” What she’s asking you to do is knit across the front of the sweater, pick up seven stitches in the cast-on edge from each side of the sleeve you just knit, knit across the back of the sweater, do the same with the second sleeve, then knit across the other front. This joins it all together, avoiding underarm seams and leaving you with only two sleeve seams to sew at the very end. If you realize you’re going to be doing this before you start the sleeves, you can use a provisional cast-on for those 7 stitches on each side and then you can simply pick up the live stitches when you get to this part. That’s what I did, and it worked marvelously. I hope this clarifies things a bit. Or really, I hope that Joan got tired of waiting for my answer and went and figured it out on her own.
Are you ready for some baby pictures? Sophie does this all the time now – pulls up on something and just stands around. In this picture, she is staring at the television out of frame. I think it was late afternoon and we were watching Bob the Builder or something. And that pink sippy cup rolling around on the floor behind her? That was Julie’s, only Sophie found it and had just been chewing on it a few moments earlier. I’m such a great mom. (yes, that was some irony right there.) But in the foreground? At the bottom left? Those are my feet in the handknit socks. yep.
Sophie at dinner, entertaining herself with a giant chunk of cucumber. Too big for her to choke on, but a great size for grabbing with little fists and slobbering all over.
I think you’ve got a good plan for your daughter’s sweater. There’s nothing wrong with a little mindless knitting!
I’m interested in getting your sweater vest pattern, but I can’t seem to find your email address. What’t the best way to get a copy? My email is purlewe@cox.net.
Thanks.