Up From the Heap and Down to the Frog Pond

Ever since I got back from vacation I have been on a knitting treadmill with the Jali Cardigan [ravelry link] pattern.  I am vastly enamored of the combination of lace and cabling, the concept of a layer showing through the lace, and the silk-bamboo yarn I found to make it with.  I'm not sure whether my obsession is a good thing or a bad thing, though, because just after I took this picture:

it was time to divide for armholes and I discovered the pattern had sneaked around and was off as much as 8 stitches in some areas.  Crap!  There is just no way to fake or finagle that big a miss.  So merrily I frogged away clear down to the middle of the first repeat.  FOR THE 6TH TIME.  Mind you, I didn't get so far the first 5 times, but still...

This has certainly taught me something about my approach to lace knitting, which is that I don't do well just reading off the chart.  I need to learn the rhythm and proportion of the pattern so that I can work without the chart much of the time, knowing what to expect and where stitches are likely to get lost or created.  Apparently, at least in this case, I am a very slow learner.  Add to my trouble the fact that I'm working with black, which hides problems in all but the best light.  This will certainly be in my favor with little glitches, but I've got to do better than my previous tries.  What keeps me going is the two (plain stockinette) sleeves already made, the forgiving strength of the yarn, and the fact that despite it all, dammit, I still am fascinated with the pattern.

But I took a little break to complete an item from the Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble and regain a little of my self-respect and sense of accomplishment.  Aided by the discovery of the tiny ball of yarn I needed to finish sewing up my Dancing Vines sweater made, I dimly recall, out of Elann's denim yarn in a currently-not-available light blue.

Also visible in the picture is the poisonous jolly fairy ring of fly agaric mushrooms that have sprung up around one of our birch trees, just one of the features of the mushroom farm our yard has become as a result of the rainy rainy summer.  I guess the rain is a good reason excuse to stay inside and try (again) to knit the Jali cardigan.

My Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble

I am a process knitter. I love assembling the project--falling in love with the pattern, finding the right yarn, figuring out how the pattern and its techniques work, adapting the pattern to my needs/wants/desires/whims/fantasies, knitting merrily away on long winter evenings while my Netflix play on tv or computer. This means that when all the knitting is done I lose interest (or am seduced by the next project) before a product is produced. My dirty secret is that I have a huge pile of completed knitting that is not yet a product. That is to say, it has not been sewn up or finished into an actual garment. The collection I have amassed of this stuff I call my Heap of Malfunctioning Rubble. The phrase is one I cribbed from elsewhere. It's from the title of a book published by these guys. Go ahead and read some of the sample articles on their site. I promise they will make you laugh.

Back to my Heap. Here it is:


Now, aren't you feeling better about the two nearly-finished sweaters and the single mitten languishing in the middle of your stash? I thought so. Glad to be of service. The even greater embarrassment is that this isn't even all of the Heap, but when I started hauling stuff out of the stash closet a shelf collapsed, dumping books, sewing and knitting stuff all over, and I was frightened out of further excavation. What if it's only knitting that's holding up the rest of the shelves?

Back to the Heap again. You see how easily distracted I can be? I have recently realized that one of the uses of this blog could be to embarrass myself into diminishing this thing. Say, at the rate of one a month. If the result is a sweater or whatever that's wearable--swell. I have an addition to my wardrobe. If it doesn't fit, then I donate it or give it to someone and somebody has a new garment. Sound like a good idea? I thought so.

We'll see. Good intentions are all very well, but the road to hell is paved with couches.