3.07.2006

The Burnout Continues

I'm in a knitting burnout in general. On Friday I got the yarn needed to finish up Aimee, but I haven't touched that project since the KO ended.

Here's what I'm currently working on:

A baby sweater. Remember how my mom was going to knit two baby sweaters for the KO? Why did I ever believe her? She much prefers her sewing machine to knitting needles, and I can see why. I'm knitting a sweater for something like 1/5 my size, and it's taken me a week to get to the armpits. Ugh.

My other frustrations:
  • I'm using Takhi Cotton Classic (2 rows of solid colorway, 2 rows of tweed colorway, with the button bands entirely solid). This is the least soft yarn ever. I should be knitting with burlap. How they can stock this in the baby section of the LYS, I'll never know. I would never have picked out this yarn; my mom bought it for the aforementioned sweater, and then gave it to me when she decided she didn't want to do it. Thanks, mom.
  • The pattern (Knitty's Daisy, designed by Stephanie Pearl McPhee) calls for 3 rows of seed stitch at the bottom. As I was doing it, I wondered if I shouldn't change that to 4 or 5 rows. I went with just the 3, and now I'm kicking myself. The stockinette totally causes it to fold. You can even see in the picture how badly it wants to fold. And, because it's cotton, blocking isn't going to do a whole lot of fixing. I'm thinking of sewing a matching grosgrain ribbon on the inside, to hopefully stabilize that part of the sweater.
  • I'm a selfish knitter. I don't like knitting for others. There are many sweaters I want to knit for myself, and not enough time. I'm going to be knitting wool sweaters in June.


That last bullet point brings me to the main reason why my knitting burnout has continued. Most of the patterns I'm attracted to call for small gauges and sport weight yarn. However, in my stash, I have mostly heavy worsted or bulky yarn. I can't buy any more yarn, since I have no job and consequently no money. I need to find good large-gauge stuff.

I also need to take it upon myself to design some garments that one can knit with only 400-700 yards of a heavy worsted/bulky yarn. I find it economical to purchase only that much, and then I'm left with yarn that I can't do anything with. The challenge for me will be to design garments appropriate for the weight--no one wants a short sleeve bulky-weight wool sweater. (Plus, I just don't like the idea of short-sleeved sweaters. I'm always freezing [thank you, thyroid], so I want something that will keep me warm.) I think I'll do something like this:

with my Manos. The bummer is that sweater is exclusive to Anthropologie's online store, which means I can't cheat by looking at its construction in any sort of 3-D close-up sense.

I've also revised my "Must Knit" list. You can now view it in the also-revised sidebar.

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