Unmaking

The last few days I've been working on some long overdue frogging.



That blue blob was the entire body portion of a Cria cardigan. It was supposed to be half my entry to the Outfit Along of 2015, run by Untangling Knots. Despite attempting to pay attention to measurements and gauge, I neglected to notice that the sleeves were way too big until after I'd finished the body. Since This sweater is a top-down, seamless-set-in-sleeves type deal, once I'd finished the body there was no easy way to go back and fix the sleeve caps. If I'd been going for SUPER POOFY sleeves I would have just kept going, but that's not what I wanted for this cardigan. So I shoved it in a corner for months while I worked on other things, unable to bear the prospect of unraveling all my work.

I dug it out again in the spirit of sustainability. Though I'm not officially stashing down this year, I would like to be more mindful of my yarn purchases and more mindful of choosing and using the yarn I already have. That means frogging projects that aren't going anywhere and finding a new use for the yarn. Once repurposed, this yarn will become something else - reused, returned to circulation, not abandoned to dust / dark closet corners.

My first act of making in the Maker's Year is unmaking.

This post is part of The Maker's Year hosted by A Playful Day.

In related news, I've joined Twitter. (The last one to do so, ever?) You can find me @goodenoughmakes. It's still a bit bare bones over there, but I'll come up with something to put there soon.

Twisted slip rib - ur doin it rong

Chugging away at my Twisted socks, I idly glanced through the pattern, something I have not done since casting on. (Uh-oh)

The abbreviations list caught my eye--specifically "Slp." Slip stitch purlwise? But... that's what I've been doing all along, when instructed to Sl1!

I'm so used to following patterns that assign the abbreviation Sl to slip purlwise that I automatically started slipping my stitches this way on these socks. Completely missing the whole "twisted" part of this slip stitch rib. Whoops. In fact, there's a bit in the pattern notes that specifically says Sl means slip knitwise... but since I only looked at the pattern to see how many stitches to cast on, I didn't notice. My bad.



What you see here is a regular, untwisted slip stitch rib, created by slipping the knit stitchs purlwise every other row. Pretty, but not what this pattern intended. I briefly considered leaving it and continuing in my nontwisty rib for the rest of the socks, since it looks okay. Ultimately, I think I like it better twisted, so I think I'll rip back and actually follow the pattern. (Deliberate disregard for pattern instructions is all fine and good, but since I chose this pattern because I liked it as written, I'm going to stick with it.) Sigh. Commence frogging!

Discouraged

I ran out of yarn knitting Tempting II. I have an inch more of yoke to knit, and then the neck band, and then I'm done. Lately, in my frugality, I can't seem to buy enough yarn. This happened with Liesl as well - not enough yarn, had to cannibalize the sleeves. It's slower going with tempting, though, since I didn't realize that frogging from the cast-on edge isn't as streamlined as frogging from the bind-off edge. It never even occurred to me, to be honest, until I painstakingly undid the sleeve edge only to find that it didn't all come undone easily. I left it there, shoved it back in my drawer, and moved on. I am so close to finishing this thing that I really don't want to just leave it, but it's turning out to be more effort than it's worth.

To console myself I ripped into my Gilmour vest, and discovered that I am a failure at proper frogging, too. Lame. It's not necessarily my fault. The yarn is very sticky, so even frogging it takes awhile. Lots of coaxing and untangling. I hope the yarn is fit for use after. (Notice, I didn't rush out to the LYS which I still haven't explored, to snatch up luxury fibres that I know are there. I'm still being good. Nearly).

I'm doing all this in between short spurts of actual work. They've got me in a panic over the workload, even though when I look at it rationally it is totally doable. And I'm doing it. But I'm not so keen on the essay parts so far - I aimed to leave this behin at least for a while. Oh well. The presence of essays continues to define my existence. What else is new. Blah blah blah.