It’s that time again. Just finished a knitting project, a thick pair of socks. What’s next? Usually it flows. But there are times it doesn’t, it doesn’t even trickle, drought time.
Yes, they’re huge size 14/15 and yes, if you want to argue that not having woven in the ends does not count as finished, go live in that world. In mine they’re done.
It’s not that I have no ideas. But either I don’t have the right yarn, the right mood, the right pattern, the right needles, the right anything. It’s all wrong, wrong, and wrong. And that’s when I start feeling real, real low.
Wanting to learn another knitting skill, I checked out Knitting One Below from the library. I love the cool columns that technique makes. A simple scarf is my goal, nothing complicated.
First of all, it takes slow color changing yarn, actually that’s a “check” for me. And it takes figuring out the stitch, check, that was a super easy check. The right size needles: lots of searching, since I never have the right size needles.Why not? After all, I have tons of needles and in every size and make. But, they are all on WIPs (Works In Progress) somewhere on the yarn shelves. I settled for what I thought was the right size in wood. I’m not a big crazy fan of wood or bamboo needles anymore. Give me my Signature needles or my Addis.
But now the problem: I hate the yarn, especially with the needles. The gauge is wrong, I knit wrong, not tight enough, I cast on too many stitches. Yes, what could go wrong, went wrong. Why could I not follow the pattern? It said to cast on 19 and that it was enough. It did not look enough to me, but 25 are certainly way too many.
I love what the yarn does, and at this point if I don’t unravel I’m hoping there’s enough for the length of the scarf. I could do some math with my scale to be sure.
I then took from the shelves about every slow color changing yarn I had 2 skeins of and cast on. That’s depressing, nothing seemed as right as the one above. I have an easier time unraveling after I put a project aside for a while and get some distance from the work I put in it. Sort of the principle of giving birth. If the birth memory stayed too long, there might never be second babies.
Frustrated, huffing, and puffing, I wove in the ends to a stack of dishcloths.
I have no plan yet to lift me up. But I’m working on it. Dealing with lows and downs makes me think of the recent suicide of one of America’s idols. Robin Williams. I got me thinking. Paying so much tribute to someone who took his own life scares me. It’s sort of a validation of suicide. I wonder if the suicide numbers go up after a famous person commits suicide.
Corporations use famous people to market their brands. They know consumers want to be like famous people. And using the same brand brings the consumer a little closer.
I’m not trying to judge here. Robin Williams must have been in lots of pain, I get that. It’s what we make out of it now. Some call it celebrating his life, but some might have a darker view on this. Just saying….