Naughty Knitting
A certain sweater should be in time out for an extended period :( Two reasons that saved it from being stuffed in a project bag and sat all alone on a shelf is 1. I'm worried if I put it aside I may never return to it and 2. stubborness - I will conquer the issues I am having with the pattern directions.
I am beginning to dislike German short rows. Actually I don't think it is the stitch itself just the way the pattern designer placed them in the pattern and gave not very clear directions (at least to me). The pattern designer was really no help with my issues. I contacted her a few times and she just kept recommending my local yarn store (do not have one I want to visit). I think I may have finally gotten past that fiddly bit - fingers crossed.
Not much progress on the naughty sweater because I would knit the short rows to lift the back of the sweater, next night unpick all the stitches knit in the rounds the prior night and knit it again. I was beginning to feel like Penelope from the Odyssey. I believe it is all I did on the sweater all week (I think it was knit, reknit at least 4 times:(
The yarn I selected is wonderful you cannot tell I have knit the same yarn 4 times. Last night I finally think I achieved at least something I can live with. I doubt it is right but I have no one who is interested in correcting my delusion so we are going to just go with it.
I was also thinking I should try helical knitting since I was using hand dyed yarn. You are "supposed" to do this so you get no line when you change skeins of hand dyed yarn since there are variations in the yarn coloring (no dye lots). Every time I tried to do the helical alternating skein move an ugly gap would appear in the sweater. Finally I just went back to joining the yarn I way I have always done where no gaps appear. I am sure it is not a "correct" join but I scoff in the face of the knitting police. Additionally I realized since I did not think of this great idea until I was almost done with the first hank. I began to examine the coloring of the sweater and noticed it just naturally has some color variation. I joined the second hank of yarn and I can discern no line of join where the color all of a sudden changes drastically.
Well here I go again breaking all the knitting rules. I am not doing helical knitting. In addition I dislike having my yarn balls all tangled when I have 2 or more yarns going at the same time. This is the reason I believe I have never become a knitting colorwork nut.
Anyway I am about to begin adding more stitches to the yoke and will march on.
To help me get over some of my mad I picked up a ball of scruffy cotton yarn I had in my stash to make dishcloths. My sister loves the scrubby dishcloths I make - swears they are the best things to use when washing dishes.
If you think crocheting with this yarn was difficult, wait until you try knitting it. I was following a pattern but it was not working so I made up my own. I simply cast on 25 stitches and garter stitched until I thought it was a good size. The cloth on the right was my first experiment so it is a little wonky. These do not have to be perfect, they will used and abused in the kitchen sink.
This yarn is a man made fabric of some type and it is hard on your hands when you knit or crochet it. I will keep on working on dishcloths in between fits of temper with the sweater.