Just a few of my favorite things…

I love handspinning. Really. The more I do it, the more I love it. (It might help that I’m getting better at this whole yarn-making process and actually starting to produce yarns that I’m excited about knitting with, too, but that’s beside the point). My most recent yarn is one that’s designed to stripe in long, Noro-style repeats… and I couldn’t be happier with how it came out. Dense and smooth with a nice sheen.

Suffice it to say, I couldn’t wait to knit with it.

Until I started looking for patterns and realized that nothing quite matched what I had in my mind’s eye. Arm warmers, definitely, because I didn’t manage to make quite enough yardage for socks and because it’s that time of year… but something sort of sophisticated and something that would show off all of the color and striping in the yarn while still being an engaging knit. After a bit of thoroughly unsuccessful digging, I decided that maybe it was time to do a bit of designing. (The world is lacking in interesting patterns that play nicely with slow-striping yarns… and I just wasn’t feeling the homey Noro Scarf that everyone and their brother was knitting last winter and the winter before that).

Thus, the Ribs and Scales mitts (affectionately known as Twisted Mermitts — alternate pattern title suggestions more than welcome) were born.

The design is a work in progress… but basically, it pulls together several of my favorite elements. Twisted stitches (I love the texture that they create, and although this is my first time working with Bavarian Twisted Stitch Knitting patterns, once I got used to the logic of how the symbols work, it seems like a really handy way to write patterns), cabling — okay, I don’t like actually doing the cabling that much while knitting, but I’m willing to overlook that fact because I love the look of it so much, asymmetry and textural contrasts. The idea is to have cuff of twisted rib, three ribbed “racing stripes” down the inside of each arm and a knotted cable detail traveling along the outside of each arm and over the outer edge of the top of the hand. Detailed, but not effeminate. Plays well with stripes by virtue of being interesting but not complicated… Oh, and the boundaries give me a handy place to hide the decreases for shaping so that I (hopefully!) get a good fit.

Now if only I were coordinated enough to cable without a cable needle… (my mind grasps the concept. My fingertips do not… and every attempt has wound up with so much time spent dropping stitches and picking them up and ripping and tinking and otherwise fixing mistakes that it takes me about four rounds, and often less, to give up and return to my trusty cable needles).

I’m looking forward to watching these grow up into full knitted objects. The joy to be had in not only designing and knitting one’s own project, but planning and spinning the yarn for it as well is not to be underestimated.

The Paradox of Choice (otherwise known as: Stash Chagrin).

I had what I would probably call the strangest experience of my knitting life last week.  I found myself without a project (not that everything I’ve been working on or started in the past few years is off the needles, mind you, far from it… but a lot of them have been relegated to hibernation until I find a suitable amount of masochism desire to finish them), wanting to start something new and being totally at a loss. I looked at my stash and my stash intimidated me.  It’s chock full of beautiful yarn waiting to be knit and somehow I found myself desperately wanting to hide from it all, afraid to choose, afraid to wind… like something in the prior six months of basically having what I was going to knit and what yarn I was going to knit it with all mapped out had broken the part of my brain that delights in matching yarns to projects.

I have a queue on Ravelry with well over one hundred projects in it, yet I couldn’t seem to choose even one of them.

At first, I blamed my commencophobia on my dreams of designing.  I reasoned that the reason nothing was exciting me was because I really wanted to design a sock or a shawl or even a pair of armwarmers and I just didn’t have the time to do it right now.  Then I blamed the size of my stash.  Or the size of my queue.  Then on to my desire to just spin and knit things out of my lovely handspun yarn.

This, I realized, is the knitter’s version of the Paradox of Choice.  (You know, that idea that arises from that story about the woman from somewhere very rural who goes to an urban supermarket and who, when she sees 30 different kinds of cottage cheese for the first time just starts bawling because there are suddenly so many decisions to make?)  It felt utterly daunting to make a choice among so many beautiful things because there were so many choices I could make, all of which had the possibility of making me delightfully happy… but which would make me happiest?  It felt so daunting, in fact, that it took me several days and a knitalong to make a decision.  (Does this happen to anyone else?)

I decided to turn to Ravelry for help and noticed that one of the knitalong groups to which I belong had, much to my delight, selected as this month’s pattern Cookie A’s Eunice.  Eunice is a pattern I’ve admired and wanted to knit since I first bought Sock Innovation back in April and I’m glad that time and life conspired to have me searching for a project when a group of people were planning to knit it altogether.  Project chosen, deadline set… life is good.  Until I realized that, although I loved the idea of this sock in a particular color of Malabrigo Sock, I didn’t actually have that color in my stash.  (Sign number one that one’s stash has gotten out of hand:  you really, wholeheartedly believe that you have a particular yarn in it and are genuinely surprised to find that, in fact, you do not, and wonder how on earth such a thing is possible given the size of the stash in question).  Which sent me on a search for another suitable yarn.  I ended up choosing Sundara Sock in the Limited Edition colorway “Comfy Elegance.”  It’s pretty dark, so it obscures some of the more delicate bits of the pattern… but I’m still ending up with a delightfuly soft, squishy sock that feels both comfy and elegant indeed.  And, assuming I finish the first sock by the end of the week, I’ll be right on target for finishing by the end of the month!

I’ve discovered that I’m truly grateful (in a whole new way) for Ravelry, especially for groups that help those of us in our indecisive moments ease into a decision.

(Oh, and I have a pretty FO to show you.  That Filigree Scarf I  started a few weeks ago?  All done and blocked.  Blocking helped it a lot, actually — it’s soft and surprisingly drapey given the amount of bounce in my yarn.  Thank you to handspun for teaching me how to knit things that are outside the comfort zone of my standard list of patterned socks and drapey lace shawls).

I’m pretty pleased, all in all.  And kind of amazed that I’ve actually managed to spin yarn that turned into a complete project… and one that I like, no less!  (Still working on that consistency thing, though… it’ll come with time and practice and several more classes.  I hope.)