Unknitting: It's the Journey, Not the Destination!

Knitting.  It can be very satisfying and very frustrating, both at the same time.

I had too many projects in various stages, so I pledged to finish up everything before I started any more.  I had one sleeve left on the Dahlia cardigan an aboslutely beautiful cardigan with a really intriguing construction, started in the middle of the lace on the back, afterthought sleeves, a real challenge.

Top picture, it is done!  I tried it on and hated it.  I looked terrible in this!  When will I realize I am not a slinky 20 something and will not look like the model in the pattern picture-ever.  So I didn't even hesitate and took it apart immediately.  I knew I would never wear it and the longer I waited, the harder it would be to take apart. I think this color was totally wrong for the project.  It really was too busy.

I then took out the Tempest sweater (middle picture).  All pieces were done, just had to put this together.  It had sat in the bag like this for over a year, all blocked and really pretty.  I again took a good look at it and realized it would never fit.  Way too small.  Again, not a skinny 20 year old.  I do have plenty of yarn and I still think that the sweater would look good on me so I will make it larger.

You would thing the last project, a pair of socks, would be a breeze after all the sweater trauma.  No, no. The second sock had sat all summer needing just its heel and foot.  But I had forgotten the pattern and the little tweeks I had made to it.  It was a very sloooow process at the heel of knitting and ripping, trying to get the stripes to match.  I think I knitted as much as a pair of socks, with all the knitting and ripping I did to get this pair to match.

I have two other projects waiting and I am almost afraid to look at them too closely, a sweater (which I will tackle next and the Frost Flower Shawl, which is going to be a slow process.  I will try to do one row every day or so, just to keep the pattern fresh in my head.

My main goal right now is to finish Afterlight and that means I will try to be a monogamous knitter.  I have the back done and am almost to the armhole on the front.  Love to have the sleeves going by Thursday's knitting group, but I'm not going to push it.

One of the things I discovered is I really am a process knitter.  It didn't cause me much of a pang to rip out all that work.  After all it's just knitting and now I get to knit something completely different!