Stay Centered

I'm doing a test knit, and I'm at that peculiar place where I am positive I will never, ever finish and equally positive that I'm nearly there.

It doesn't help that this keeps happening:

That one was from last night. I zoned out of the sleeve, knitting happily until I realized that I'd increased enough stitches that I should have added a pattern repeat to each side.

Over twenty rows prior.

This was nothing compared to when I misread the instructions and knit the back from the hem to the armholes in the wrong size. Once the horror had mostly passed, I calculated how many stitches I ripped out: 10,110. A tiny piece of my heart crumbled to ash.

"Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate."

-Chuang Tzu

I'm trying to stay centered, but I'm only marginally successful.

Yesterday after work I bought this:

Someday soon... maybe.

Clematis Cardigan

I was looking through The Knitter issue 92 yesterday when I came across the Clematis Cardigan.

I thought, "That looks a lot like the latest test knit I did for Juniper Moon Farm."

I read a bit further then yelled, "I KNIT A CARDIGAN IN A MAGAZINE."

Clematis Cardigan (mine ravelled here),

knit in Juniper Moon Farm's Herriot Fine

I cannot express how excited I am by this. I really like The Knitter and feel like its target audience is a more experienced knitter, and the fact that something I knit is in there makes me feel like a badass. I can't imagine how the designer (Pamela Wynne) must feel.

Not Getting Things Done

As many people do, I did some naval gazing around the New Year. One of the things I decided to work on was the intensity with which I work to Get Things Done in my hobbies, which, by definition, should be enjoyable.

I have a knitting project going nearly all the time, and I get twitchy in the brief moments between the bind off of one project and the cast on of another. I rarely allow myself to lie fallow, and that means I rarely let my brain really contemplate new projects that would be creatively fulfilling.

For example, I own the Knitsonik Stranded Colourwork Sourcebook. I think I would really enjoy finding an object that is meaningful to me and developing a stranded pattern inspired by that object. But that takes time, and instead it is easier for me to cast on another pair of socks.

Then I have to Finish the Socks.

When I finish the socks, I have to start something else... which then has to be finished. You see the track this Crazy Train barrels down.

So, one of my new year's goals is to be more intentional. I want to give myself creative space. I want to knit less. I want to give myself permission not to Get Things Done. I want to color in a coloring book if that sounds fun, and I want to give up on a sweater that I don't love, and I want to tell the voice in my head that insists I continually do something productive to shut the fuck up.

Um, but I can't do all that right now. (Can't can't do that right now?) Right now, I'm doing some knitting for a designer, and it has a deadline.

But after that, I'm going to Not Get Things Done.