Off the shoulders
Two of my three summer cardigans are finished. Done, dusted, blocked and now being worn. That leaves one. Lanata. And here she is, so close and yet so far away.
I took her on holiday and the 50/50 merino/cotton Ianthe yarn was a perfect weight to knit in the heat, and the pattern was interesting, but not crazily complicated. I was loving this knit and managed to get a whole lot done ... at first ... So what happened? Well first, I RAN OUT OF YARN. In desperation I unpicked my swatch and started knitting with that.
And, that's when I had an "epic fail", if I am to use the language of my 10 year old son. It wasn't the yarn from the swatch that was the problem, although I am told it is a big no no to knit your swatch once blocked. Nope, the yarn is awesome, it is glorious to feel and seems to be able to stand up to anything. The problem was me. Again. The pattern talked about decreasing for the raglan shaping and casting off for the neck ... all while maintaining the pattern ... and that's when it lost me. I could not get my stitch count right. Eventually I realised I needed to stop more of my yarn overs and increases to cut down the number of stitches along the Raglan decreases. But where? I realised that I shouldn't increase where there was no corresponding decrease but I just couldn't get it right and I kept making mistakes and ending up with the wrong numbers.
At one point, as I sat next to the pool trying and trying again to knit the yoke, a friendly camper remarked that I was "still knitting". Grrrrrr .... What he didn't know was that I truly was "still knitting". Knitting the same jolly rows, over and over and OVER!!! I just kept telling myself that I was lucky to have so many chances to knit this fabulous yarn and, what would I knit if I figured it out and I ran out of yarn? Best I keep ripping and re-knitting ...
Well, we've been home for a while and I haven't tried knitting Lanata again. The poor thing, she's sat for weeks, lonely in her project bag, patiently waiting. But, I've bought the new yarn now and I've got other things I want to be getting on with, so I better get cracking and give Lanata another go. There's certainly no hot sun here to addle my brain this time. Let's just hope I can figure her out ...
At one point, as I sat next to the pool trying and trying again to knit the yoke, a friendly camper remarked that I was "still knitting". Grrrrrr .... What he didn't know was that I truly was "still knitting". Knitting the same jolly rows, over and over and OVER!!! I just kept telling myself that I was lucky to have so many chances to knit this fabulous yarn and, what would I knit if I figured it out and I ran out of yarn? Best I keep ripping and re-knitting ...
Well, we've been home for a while and I haven't tried knitting Lanata again. The poor thing, she's sat for weeks, lonely in her project bag, patiently waiting. But, I've bought the new yarn now and I've got other things I want to be getting on with, so I better get cracking and give Lanata another go. There's certainly no hot sun here to addle my brain this time. Let's just hope I can figure her out ...