Brutally Honest...

 I went to Three Bags Full's Knit Night last night to take photos for the blog.  ( a new post is up with some great ideas at Threebagsfullcorner.blogspot.com) 
This was the only thing I could find that I felt comfortable wearing there. 
It is an old Ribbon scarf from years ago. 
I had thought about wearing the vests I made in the last year. 
They all had issues.  
They were primarily cotton and they grew and grew…

I felt like I'd wasted so much time and money on these vests. 
Lessons learned. 
While I can be happy that I knitted them and conquered reverse shaping, finally, I knit them in the wrong yarns. 
Two of the three will literally become kitty property.
They will be stuffed inside the baskets that the cats love to sleep in during the winter months.  

My most successful knits are not sweaters and vests.
I'm successful with scarves and hats and socks and stoles. 
(Fingerless gloves too.) (perhaps because they usually involve wool which I can wear on my hands and feet and over a coat) Wool is my friend.  Repeat Kathy B. wool is my friend. 

Perhaps, because, quite honestly, my pretend friends, I don't' have the patience to knit sweaters and vests without losing interest.  
I'm so monogamous that I cannot think of working on more than two projects at a time. 
If something takes me more than say 3 weeks, I'm bored with it. 

So I have to be brutally honest with myself:
I have to ask more about the yarns I want to use and think more seriously about the project before I get all giddy and cast on. 
The failures in knitting make me really unhappy.
Even though I've enjoyed the time knitting, if I don't have a product in the end….well then it is just a activity I enjoy and not a good use of my money. 
I'm very pragmatic. 

Okay, deep breathe, I love this craft. 
It is good to learn lessons. 
Have you noticed anything about my knitting that would help me in this area?  
I'm open to suggestions.  My friend Karen, an expert knitter, sums up my knitting styles perfectly.  She makes me think about how to improve.  She tells me to LOOK at what I'm doing. 
She encourages me to count… so simple and so effective on the lace fingerless finish. 

Hey, that was a great finish. And a stretch for me due to the lace, I can feel good about that success...


 Karen is knitting or well, weaving these days. 

She's making squares and joining them to be a lovely scarf. 
The colors are just so soft and lovely! 

I succeeded with patty pan squash this week. 
Olive oil, lemon pepper and lots of garlic. 
The lemon pepper was , to be brutally honest, the farm stand ladies suggestion. 


Speaking of  failure….
Rozzy's having accidents again. So now we try Prozac.
At the pharmacy, ahem
HIPPA VIOLATION,
they shouted out, 
BOYER FOR THE CAT to the counter please.
I smiled and looked at them all and the other customers and said, 
"Yes, my cat is on prozac..and she's worth it"

Hope your weekend is full of knit joy and success. 



Comments

Nancy said…
You and the scarf are beautiful - such a nice photo!

I don't knit sweaters for myself, not that I can't, but that I don't. My body changes too much for me to spend weeks knitting a garment only to find that it doesn't fit or flatter. I'll stick to knitting sweaters for children and donate them. The organization will match my knitting to the appropriate child.

Sorry to hear that Rozzy is still struggling. Hugs to you for taking such good care of her.
knitterbeader said…
You seem a lot like me. I have several large projects that have been put aside and so far I just can't make myself pick them up and work on. One is a cardigan I started probably 5 years ago, and the other is a baby blanket that I started last year and had no babies to knit for. Now I have a great-grandson due in January and know I should get going on this blanket.

However, I would rather knit scarves, cowls and fingerless mitts!!!!
Caffeine Girl said…
I have three failed sweaters in my past, so I know exactly how you feel. I think many of us would benefit by thinking more before plunging into projects. I started a sweater a year ago, and I don't know what I was thinking!
I don't think you're doing anything wrong. You're just learning as you go, which is all any of us can do.
SissySees said…
I don't have any sweaters I've knitted for me that still fit either. The beautiful cardi I whipped out while I was grieving for Mugsy is too big. I could fix it, but ...

I have several shrugs in various degrees of started around here, but I'm working on another baby blanket.

Poor Rozzy. I hope the happy pills help!
Anonymous said…
You have to learn to pick you projects judiciously ....I need to learn how to pick my YARN judiciously. I look in my yarn chest and seriously wonder WHY I chose some of what is in there. :::rolling my eyes:::

That scarf certainly is an interesting construction technique. I hope you'll post again when it is finished.

Sorry about poor Rozzy ---- hope the Prozac works for her.

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