Tuesday, July 17, 2007

I had no clue!

(First off, hello to any Ravelry-ites out there!)

I was vaguely aware of the existence of this so-called Sidewinder sock, but given that I am not currently a Sock Person (hate wearing them, hate tiny DPN-ness and stopping to slide my stitches around on dpns or long circs) I must have dismissed it as just another sock pattern I'd avoid.

Well, today I happened to catch a picture of it on V's blog, and WOW! How cool is that? Looks like magic! Screw the fact that it requires grafting up the whole front -- I LIKE grafting. (Makes me feel smart, yo.) And now I can go out and actually use all of those awesome colors of Koigu and Gems and Trekking and Cherry Tree Hill and Mountain Colors and and and...

Okay, back up. Not allowed to start anything new until I finish something else.

My current Something Else, of course, is the Mystery Stole. It's smaller than expected, given the use of Lacey Lamb (teeniest yarn evarr), but I think that if I add a repeat or two of section 4 or whatever the repeatable section is, it'll still be nice and long and lovely.

It's purple, you know, the result of a little trip to Arcadia Knitting courtesy my pal Brian while I was in Chicago a couple weeks ago. A nice deep eggplant color. NOT BLUE. NOT GREEN. See? I told you I could stop whenever I liked.

The only thing about the Mystery Stole is that I have this feverish need to complete it by the time the next clue comes out, and I really need to be easier on myself. My summer is going pretty well, and I've had some great times in the evenings, doing stuff like playing timpani in the community summer band, an upcoming choir concert, going to a baseball game, etc. Knitting, especially knitting a wee little project with help from a two-sided chart, isn't always compatible with those things. There's been a fair amount of traveling, and I am usually in the passenger seat, so I've gotten a goodly amount done during those times. This weekend should lead to some more of that.

Also, the Mystery Stole has really brought to my attention how we don't always realize the wonderful things we're doing. I was accosted at the Sow's Ear last week by an older and obviously more experienced knitter who couldn't stop raving about the stole. It's really a beautiful pattern. I find, though, that I'm constantly being self-deprecating about it: "Oh, it's just following a chart." "Oh, yeah, the yarn and the needles are tiny, but it's really no different than using worsted; the stitches are the same." Well, judging by the amount of teeth-gnashing I do when I have to fix something (especially when I drop a damn stitch... LORD I could live without that...), it's not. Doing this is a great test of patience, and that's something that a lot of people can't do. Who knows; maybe I'm in that number.

Sometimes the "craft" makes you overlook the "art". That's a mistake.

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