Dear Malibrigo Lace: Bite me.

I'm not superstitious.  Really, I'm not.  But this yarn is trying my patience and making me question what I thought I knew to be true about the properties of wool.

I tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to make this yarn into a stole.  I blamed the needle.  I blamed the yarn. I blamed the pattern.  I blamed myself. 

A friend helped me find a different pattern.  Beautiful, reversible, and cabled.  Sound familiar?  It looked similar to the Jeanie, but there were no #$&%(_ knitting through the back loop and no *(#_%^ dropped stitches.  This would be better.

Before I go any further, let me just say: I'm a good knitter.

It is also true that I don't always read the pattern as carefully as I should.  Several rows into this new stole, I realized I hadn't been knitting the first four and last four stitches of the row correctly.  No problem.   I would spread it out on the conference room table at lunch, tackle it with a cool head, steely determination, and a crochet hook.

I guess I'll cast on again tonight.

Sigh.

On the Rocks

Lorena commented on my last post that she's heard that freezing mohair helps it to unravel.  Since the yarn I was using for Jeanie was sticky like mohair...

Does it work?  That depends on what you mean by the word.  If you mean, "Does it help you to unravel the yarn?", I don't have an answer for you because I haven't tried it yet.

If, however, you mean, "Did it make you feel good to stuff that wad of yarn in the freezer and slam the door?", the answer is a resounding yes.

Undone

Once upon a time, I decided to stop knitting something because it was bad for me.  I was unable to convince myself to rip out the project, so I stuffed it in a drawer.

It sat in the drawer for about six months.  I'd like to tell you that I didn't think about it, but I did.  I'd like to tell you that I gave up on a project that made me crazy, but I didn't.

This weekend I went to a knit shop and bought a pair of Addi Lace needles in size 6.  I went home, took out the project, and started work on it again.  "A poor worker always blames her tools" kept running through my head.  I tried to ignore it.

It went well for a few rows, but then I found I was off a few stitches in one section.  I couldn't figure out where the mistake was.  Often, when I have problems like this, I can fudge things by knitting stitches together or adding stitches to get back up to the correct count.  That doesn't work with this project because certain stitches are dropped.  If you drop one that you've used to knit two stitches together, that second stitch just floats loose and everything goes very, very badly.

I struggled with it for a long time.  Then I admitted that I was going to have to start over, a fact that pained me because of the hours I'd already spent with my tiny, four inches of lace and because I remembered how long it took me to do the provisional cast on.  I steeled myself, pulled out the needles and began ripping.

Except that the lace didn't rip.  I had already noticed that dropped stitches tended to not drop with this yarn.  I had to force them to drop because the yarn was... sticky for lack of a better word.  The yarn is wool, but it's slightly fuzzy and sticks to itself a bit like mohair.

I tried pulling the yarn while Andrew held it, but it kept sticking.

Then it started breaking apart.  After it had broken in three places and I still wasn't anywhere close to getting it unraveled, I wadded it up and threw it back in the drawer.

Now I'm looking at lace patterns.  Maybe there's another rectangular stole....

Saying No

A little backstory:

I am a sophomore in college and attempting a double major in biology and religious studies.  I have just earned a B- on a botany quiz.  I am a straight-A student.  I stop by to see the professor, a lovely person, who gently asks me how many hours I am taking that semester.  I tell her: 19.  


She tells me that it is impossible to take that many lab-intensive classes with that many credit hours and asks me why I'm doing it.  I tell her about the double major.  She tells me it can't be done.  I tell her I've been thinking about dropping biology to a minor.  I plan to go to grad. school in religious studies, but I love biology.  She tells me to drop the major and to drop her class, since it's no longer required.  


I tell her that I want to continue with botany.  I don't want it to beat me.  I can bring it up to an A; I just have to work harder.


She pauses, then says, "Of course you can do it.  But why would you kill yourself to make a point?  Who are you trying to convince?"  Then she goes to her printer, prints off the drop form, and hands it to me.


I owe that professor a lot.

I have always struggled with "should," with proving to myself that I can do things instead of walking away gracefully.

This afternoon, I sat at a computer I was attempting to rebuild* and pulled out Jeanie and started to knit while Microsoft was loading.  The stitches alternatively split and fell off the needle.  I spent several minutes struggling with the first eight stitches, which were a cable, before the computer blue screened and I stuffed the whole lot into my bag in frustration.  I yearned for something calming I could do while the computer stomped its foot and refused to cooperate.

After spending some time on the phone with my new South American friend from Dell, who is now sending me a replacement hard drive for said computer, I walked back to my office with my knitting bag and thought.

1.  I love this pattern.  It's gorgeous.  I've seen many people's finished stoles, and they are breathtaking.
2.  I love this yarn.  It, too, is gorgeous.
3.  I am convinced that this finished product would be one of the most beautiful things I have ever made.
4.  I hate knitting this pattern.  My needles were too dull.  Andrew sanded them into sharp points for me, and now they stab me.  I can't see the pattern well.  The laceweight splits and falls off the needles unless I am 100% dedicated to watching them.  Everything with this has been a struggle with me.

I thought for a long time about it.  Most of me felt like that student in the botany professor's office, determined to push through regardless of whether that was the best thing for me; afraid that walking away was failing.

I remembered the conversation with my professor and asked myself, "Who are you trying to convince?"  The answer had to be myself.  Nobody else cared what I was knitting, seeing how this is my hobby, forthelove.  I was trying to convince myself that I should finish this pattern because I had started it, irregardless of anything else.

Then, I said no.

* Master's in Theological Studies, remember.  I, too, am a bit confused at what my life has become.

Process (again)

I finished a pair of socks yesterday at lunch.  They're fraternal and lovely.

Naive Socks (Ravelry link), Knitpicks Felici yarn in Tyrean (discontinued colorway)

This led me to contemplation about what was next.  I looked through a couple of books, flicked through a magazine, carried around two skeins of yarn, rummaged through my needles.

And yet something was watching me, silently waiting.

I tried to ignore it.  It simply waited, looking at me, unblinking.

It knew it had the upper hand.  It knew it was just a matter of time.  It's the perfect yarn for the perfect project.  I can only resist for so long, even though I'm sure it's going to plunge me into despair.

Beware the laceweight.  It's too late for me, but maybe you can be saved.

Process

I had a gift certificate for a local yarn shop, and I bought some beautiful Malabrigo lace yarn. 

 

I had a pattern in mind when I bought it, but I decided I would get bored with it, so I started searching for something else.

Oh, my, did I ever find it: Jeanie.  This was the elusive Lace That Doesn't Look Old.*  Lace that looks intricate and beautiful.  Lace that is reversible and has cables.  Reversible cables, people.  Lace that has dropped stitches.  I've never done a pattern with dropped stitches (...well, not purposely dropped stitches, anyway.)

I know that there is a lot of ugly knitwear in the world.  Just because it can be knit, does not mean that it should.  The plethora of unattractive knitting patterns is one of my primary complaints about this hobby.

But this, my friends, is beautiful.

There's talk in the knitting world, and probably other worlds as well, about process vs. product people.

Process people are those who do something simply for the enjoyment of the motions, for the love of the action itself.  Process knitters would knit a project just because it's a clever and interesting knit, even if the product was not something they or anyone they knew would love.

Product people are those who do something always with an eye toward what the finished product will be.  Product knitters would consider it a waste of time to knit something that wasn't ultimately going to be loved by its recipient.

I'm about 90% product and 10% process.  I'll knit something that's miles and miles of black stockinette stitch  (coughStarWarsScarfcough) if i believe the person will love it, but I'd prefer to be working on something with cables or twists or some other bit of cleverness.

It took me two hours and an Internet connection to get the cast-on.**  The pattern has three separate charts and thirteen stitch markers that are used for each row.  I can only knit this in complete isolation.  I've been knitting it after I eat my lunch, and I've found that I can get two rows done after eating before it's time to head back to work.  Tuesday, I managed three, and that was pretty damn thrilling.

Now, it's possible that I'll get faster and/or that I'll get comfortable enough with the pattern that I can knit it outside of a closed, locked, silent room.  However, it's also possible that I won't.  

Two to three rows a day five days a week.  I had originally hoped it would be ready to be worn on my birthday... thirteen years from now.  However, by my calculations, I will never, ever finish this.  People will wrap me in it before they send me into the crematorium, tucking the needle under my arm in a futile attempt to make it look like I'm wearing something finished.

Process knitting.

I'll let you know.

*To me, anyway.  If you feel differently, please don't tell me.

**I hate provisional cast-ons.  Hate them. They make no sense to me whatsoever.