Stressful Knitting

We all have those days when the alarm doesn't go off and you step in cat puke because you didn't realize the fluffy love of your life had thrown up in the middle of the night next to the bed and the pop-tart causes a toaster fire and suddenly the ice maker doesn't work, right? We've all had those days, haven’t we? Am I alone here?

Photo from designer page

During times of stress, I turn to knitting. The rhythm of a pattern and the feel of the fiber between my fingers just seems to send a calm over me. But lately I've been feeling more stressed out by patterns. I am always up for a new challenge and love new-to-me techniques, but in the last week I have started and stopped three separate patterns because they are just too difficult or fiddly. I’m not usually a knit quitter but this week I made exceptions. One pattern in particular was the gorgeous Hamanasu cowl. It’s a really beautiful design using unique knitting techniques, but it just beat me. I can’t handle three cable needles at the same time. I just can’t do it. I tried. Even I have my knit limits! I had two cable needles going in different directions (I hadn't even come to the third cable needle yet) and there were some yarnovers and slipping yarn and just too many things happening at once. My brain shut down and my fingers went on strike. God bless the knitter who can manage that project. It’s lovely, but it's not for me.

Photo from Interweave Knits

I also feel spoiled by online patterns versus magazine patterns. With online PDF patterns there’s just more room for detail and notes and photos. With magazine patterns, they are restricted by allotted page space. I worked in the magazine industry years ago and I know how constrained you can feel by three columns or 500 words or less. There’s only just so much you can get in. I think it would be a great idea for some of these craft magazines to offer extended versions of their patterns online free to current subscribers. Free being the key word there. For example, one of the projects I started and stopped (and maybe I’ll pick up again) was the Barnard Raglan in the Fall 2013 issue of Interweave Knits. I’m no stranger to sweaters. I love to knit them. This past winter and spring, I was knitting about a sweater a month or so. When it comes to the Barnard pattern, I don’t think the sweater itself is particularly hard to knit, it’s just that the instructions were difficult for me to envision. I like a straightforward pattern that tells me what I need to do and when to do it and I like to think about the pattern visually (how I would knit it). With this particular pattern, I felt like assumptions had to be made and there was the dreaded “at the same time and also at the same time” language. I love the pattern and I’m sure I’ll come back to it over the winter when my head is feeling less overloaded, but for now my brain just needs to knit and not to think too much.

Photo from designer page

On the needles now  …

• Cocoon Me cowl
• Miss Babs Yowza - Whatta Skein in "Zombie Prom" (love that name!)
• New-to-me technique = p5tog. That's a lot of purling together!