Sweating (and not) the small stuff

What goes before always changes what comes next.  Evolution inevitably happens. 

Intellectual evolution is included.  Jokes we thought were hilarious ten years ago are boring.  The internet has accelerated the process.  Remember the Dancing Baby?  That was so cool when it first appeared.  We've moved on.

Moving on isn't always comfortable, nor is it inevitable.  Kim's post about not blogging WIPs poked at me to evaluate what I wanted to do with that.  Blogfodder changes, just as we, and the Interweb does.  It is clear that we post what interests us, and amuses our friends and readers.  Sounds like a plan to me.

So, yes, I had a trainwreck of a WIP in that glovelet.  Whew.  I simply refuse to discuss how long I spent picking out the cast-on edge.  That wasn't the end of it.  I learned that from the cast-on edge, the knitting doesn't magically unravel like the cast-off edge would.  I picked several of the six rows of plain ribbing, stitch by stitch, so that the pattern would match. 

Then I gave up.  Furious, I picked out the cast-off row to unravel the whole damn thing and start over.  Naturally,  somewhere in the thumb stitches, it hung up and refused to move.  I picked up a scissors, and chopped the whole thing into little, teensy pieces so that I WOULD NOT BE TEMPTED to pick it back up ever again, to rescue the yarn.  I chopped it into little frustrated, angry pieces, and threw it in the wastebasket.

Pictures, thousand words, and all that.  Several hours later (Etherknitter to Mr. Etherknitter:  "Dear, could you not throw anything goopy in the basket until I retrieve the mittlet shreds?") I proved that blogfodder trumps frustration and the humiliation of dumpster-diving, suburban-style.

Life and knitting inevitably move on.  The mittlet has been restarted, and is at the end of the gusset increases.

The Sylph yarn swatch is moving along.  It glows.

Beth Brown-Reinsel gave a top-down Aran workshop in New Hampshire last week.  It is the sister to her top-down gansey workshop that others took in July at the TKGA conference. 

One masters the concepts while knitting a tiny Aran over six hours.  It is high-wire knitting to the speed of the William Tell Overture.  I never let my inaccurate stitch count get in the way of my forward progress.  As a result, I came home with concepts, and nothing that looks remotely like a a sweater.  But her ribbed neck cast-on, shoulder saddle construction, and great good humor were well worth the price of admission.  I sat at a table with Amy from New Hampshire.  She was wearing a handknit, handspun sweater which gave me renewed hope.

She had different wools, different grists, nay, even different species (alpaca!) spun and hanging around.  So she took a knitting from the top down sweater book, and figured out a sweater. 

She is a very talented fiberista.  But it also means that I should stop sweating making Mr. E's Coopworth sweater an exact grist.  That means I will have more fun AND faster progress.

Imagine that.

NB:  Do click on the William Tell Overture link.  I had to wipe away tears of laughter before I could finish posting the link.

Comments

[margene]

I'm dancing at your confessions. You're learning the JOY of just doing, of the process, and that it isn't about perfection. Even chopping up something that isn't behaving brings joy...you'll never see that bugger again and you learned to move on.
Amy's sweater is awesome!

[margene]

You're right...that link is a hoot!

[Danielle]

1) The dancing baby has always disturbed me a bit.
2) William Tell linkage = amusing :)
3) Exact grist = exactly how I would like to be able to spin.
4) Numbered lists in comments, combined with list item #3 = clear indication of a need for a vacation! Thank goodness I'm leaving work soon :)

[Marcia Cooke]

I took BB-R's gansey (but bottom up) workshop at R'beck last year and loved it. The top-down workshop sounds like what I went through in Nancy Bush's Norwegian sweater workshop, though: I had six hours of HOMEWORK and still never finished. Thanks for the link....brightened an otherwise dreary day. Happy Thanksgiving to you and Mr. E. (Too bad you can't scoot out to Utah next month with Norma and me....wouldn't that be a hoot?!)

[Lynn]

That sounds like just SO much fun to take scissors to a lousy project! Not that I can bear to do it myself, you understand, I just declare it "insulation" and stuff it in a closet for a decade, and then throw the whole thing out or frog the yarn back into usability or felt it into a bag. But scissors, now, I could get into scissors....

[Caroline M]

It's the product/process discussion again isn't it. I knit for the process and I like to see the process of other people's knitting. When you present a finished item then hopefully it is "right" but there may have been several points along the way when it was less than perfect. You will have learned from the challenges along the way and other knitters could too. If you just ditch the glovelet you pass over the opportunity for someone else to learn that knitting only unravels in the opposite direction to that in which it was made.

Every blogger to her/his own.

[Margaret]

Oh my, I remember watching the Dancing Baby over slow dial-up. I find WIP's inspiring and amusing sometimes, and even more so vicariously chopping up some badly behaved knitting!

[Teresa C]

You should really move the scissors out to the shed so you have to think for a few more minutes before you actually use them. :)

Thanks for making me click on the link. Some talented people out there!

[Cheryl]

I think we should all use the word "mittlet" more. It's so much fun to say.

[PumpkinMama]

Way to go! While I've not chopped anything up, I have thrown out a project as well as some spinning that just had me so frustrated that I couldn't breathe anymore. It feels good.

Also - the Overture - now those are some talented hands!

[claudia]

I am definitely a fan of scissors in the right circumstances.

[Rachel H]

I can't decide if I'm more amused by you taking the scissors to the glovelet, or the dumpster diving so you could show us the result of taking the scissors to the glovelet...

[Sylvia]

I think I have an unfinished email to you in my drafts folder. Hectic here. Mostly good-hectic, but crazy nonetheless.

Get me to talk to you about grist the next time we're together, and have me bring along my bag of old SheepThrills spinning samples.

A practical note. Spin as spin does, aiming for the grist of the snippet you've tied to your maiden, but not obsessing. Ply. Then, weigh, measure, and compute the grist of each hank. Arrange them from fine to coarse. If most are to one end, use that as the body of the sweater, using the heavier yarns at the top, including the tops of the sleeves. Reserve the outliers for cuffs, collar, welt, plackets. If it's roughly half one grist and half another, use the heavier half for the torso and the lighter half for the sleeves, again, heavy above, light below. Does that make sense?

[Cheryl S.]

Thank you for sharing the mittlet story. If nothing else, I'm sure you must have found some moment of pleasure in scissoring it to death. And the William Tell Overture link was great - although I had a strange moment where I wondered if he was finger-synching.

[Chris]

I shouldn't get so much glee from your frustration, but I confess. I did. Outright laughter in fact. But it was all in sympathy and solidarity cause I've been right there. Plus you tell the story so well!

The Overture - O.M.G! I laughed again.

[Andrea (noricum)]

Those mitten bits would make good nesting material for birds. (They might as well warm something. ;) )

[Kim]

You and those scissors....priceless!! Thanks for the laugh...LOL!

[kmkat]

I too learned the hard way that one cannot simply chop off the the cast-on edge and unravel. That fact still boggles my mind.

I knew someone who knew someone who could play the Notre Dame fight song on his teeth. Remarkable talents out there ;-)

[Cathy]

LOL - blogging the remains. I rather like the WIP but maybe it's to prove to myself things are getting finished.

Or maybe it's to prod me to finish.

Love love love Amy's sweater. Good food for thought.

[Helen]

Isn't it freeing to just get rid of something?

[Teyani]

heh heh - maybe it's confession time, ahem.. I've done that exact same thing (with the scissors) when something drove me nuts. Keeps that crazy yarn in its place (grin)
How great that you are 'stretching' out of the concept of precision spin/knit - I truly have fun when I do not require 'perfection' of myself, and allow a bit of personality to appear in certain projects.
Hope your thanksgiving was lovely - and that you have a nice peaceful weekend.

[susan]

Wow, remind me not to stand anywhere near you when you've got scissors in your hand.

[Ruth]

I've been known to toss my knitting into a tangled heap in the closet to ponder its sins before I'll take it out again. I've threatened with scissors, but never dared (I know, I know, discipline does no good if you won't follow through).

That William Tell link is a HOOT. I can't wait to show it to Eldest.

[Marcy]

On the subject of tearing things up, mayhap you will find this of some comfort: http://www.veronikavery.com/blog/index.php?paged=2

[Lucia]

Next time I have a really destructive urge...

[--Deb]

Never heard the William Tell Overture sound quite like that before! (grin) And, brave you with the scissors!

[JessaLu]

You scissored it to death? That's AWESOME!

[Juno]

you mean you're going to...go with it?

I am so proud. Also that you executed the mitt AND blogged it.

[Abby]

Everytime I skim by your blog and catch a glimpse of that pile of minced yarn, I involuntarily gasp.

[Bev]

And the Ether just keeps on with the awesome posts! Sure can understand the frustration that would make you do the thing with the scissors! I have miles and miles of I-cord in my knitting area - frustration with Mermaid! Isn't it funny how sometimes the simplest of patterns/concepts/designs can have even an experienced knitter stymied? Have you seen my scissors?