Fruition

You remember this skein of SpunRightRound 80/20 Sock?

Colorway: Crybaby

I luuurhve it. It's the perfect balance of pastel and neon, speckled and not, wearable and artistic.

It also put me through the wringer figuring out what to do with it!

Left: First attempt; Right: Second attempt

I really had to struggle to figure out how to best showcase this yarn. At first, I thought mostly stockinette stitch would be best to let the colorway dominate, but it wound up looking boring. I took inspiration from the brioche + speckled yarn trend and tried a different shape, and a different direction. Once I was done with the brioche section, however, I couldn't decide on another stitch pattern that would work harmoniously. Even more rips and reknits commenced!

I can't remember the last time I had this much trouble with a design, but I'm so glad I took the time and patience to keep trying with this one. It all became worth it in the end when I bound off, though I still had some reservations about how blocking would change the fabric.

After a quick blocking....I luuurhve it. It's beyond perfect and so worth the effort. Luckily Renee at SpunRightRound picked a hardy sock base, because even with all the frogging the yarn looks gorgeous and like new. Can't wait to share it off to you soon!

The Journey

As I briefly mentioned on Instagram earlier this week, I've been struggling with some wrist/forearm pain and haven't been knitting much. It's from computer use at work, especially the Photoshop-heavy days, but my desk at home isn't ergonomic either. A keyboard tray for my work desk arrived at the end of day on Friday, so I've got that to install on Monday, and I ordered a new computer desk for my home office that is shorter, more compact, and has an included keyboard tray. I also availed myself to my doctor, who advised I wear wrist braces to sleep in and has referred me to a physical therapist. Fingers crossed that I get sorted out soon, but I'd love any words of advice or encouragement from others who work 8+ hours a day on a computer and have dealt with similar issues! Luckily, I don't have any immediate deadline knits lined up so I'm not actively sabotaging my work, but you know, I really want to knit.

I've been trying to keep myself occupied with other things, and am using the new computer desk as the impetus to move into Stage 2 of the home office organization/set-up. I was sorting through a big pile of papers that needed to be filed and in the process decided to clean out my file folders. I found a bunch of documents from my original designing days and wowee! A) What a walk down memory lane and, B) I'm like, a really professional designer now in comparison. Sometimes I feel like I'm still muppet-flailing my way through this whole thing so that was a nice moment.

Before I got comfortable with writing patterns in full before knitting them, I wrote it out as I knitted the sample, line by line, and then graded it afterward. (In front, the Dreamer's Braided Pullover and in back, the Holla Back Tank on pink Hello Kitty notebook paper!) That's problematic for grading purposes, since you can easily make design decisions that fit one size but don't scale up and down nicely, but also omg, so much work writing it BY HAND ON PAPER.

I definitely prefer to do things on paper when I can, but I've made myself transition to digital because it makes more sense in the long run. At this stage, I didn't have charting software available so I used graph paper to figure out colorwork and cable charts. (Above is the Free Cecily Hat and below, Wavy Gravy Mittens.) The thumb on the left mitten was erased and re-drawn multiple times as I tried to figure out how I wanted to handle it!

And of course, hand drawn schematics to round it out, seen here as the Praline Pullover! I actually still do this sometimes, even though I use Inkscape to draw schematics, because Inkscape is really annoying to use. (Just sent off a pattern's final materials this morning with a hand drawn schematic!) I use several free, open source programs and thus have had to teach myself how to use them. At times like this when I'm trying to rest my hands as much as possible, drawing it by hand is faster than messing with Inkscape. Now though, if I draw my schematic I will scan it and add the dimensions in Photoshop so there's no concern with my handwriting causing confusion.

It's cool to see how far I've come, but I still have plenty of ways to grow! I don't use InDesign like many designers do and I don't use Excel spreadsheets to grade my patterns. (Which I'm a little embarrassed to admit, I feel like I'll be made fun of for that one.) I just never got around to setting them up! It's a future goal of mine for sure but in the meantime, I'm enjoying tweaking my system as I go and being grateful for the ways I've already streamlined my process.

Rip, Reknit & Rewind

I took yesterday off as a vacation day from work, planning a magical, 4-day weekend bursting with creative accomplishments and getting so! much! work! done!

Hahahaha. I should have known that my anticipation was inviting folly.

I spent all of Thursday night and much of yesterday knitting and ripping out swatches for design submissions that just weren't working. I finally got one success, then decided to revisit my yellow Fyberspates Vivacious DK summer WIP. I pulled it out, knit two rows, then looked down and realized: what the fuck am I making?

There's nothing WRONG with this, I just...don't like it.

If you get my weekly newsletter, this week's was about wardrobe planning. I've been reading as many resources on this as I can get my hands on, because I do want to have a more thoughtful, cohesive wardrobe (including the handmade elements.) I quoted Karen Templer who said:

I’ve long followed that rule about not buying anything if I can’t immediately put together three outfits with it, using only things I already own. And yet that has never applied to my knitting.

Lightbulb lightbulb lightbulb! I have a lot of handknit pieces, design samples included, that I just don't wear because they're not...me. I love the idea of them but I don't love wearing them.

I started this yellow number before that lightbulb moment and well, I'm just not going to wear a short sleeve open front cardigan with a chevron and bobble hem detail. No matter how cute it looks above, or how cute it will look when I'm finished. I have not gone through my wardrobe and thought, "I need a short sleeve wool cardigan." That gap doesn't exist.

I consider myself to be a happy marriage between a process knitter and a product knitter. I have to like the process enough to stick with it, but I also need to want that FO to keep my going as my carrot on the stick. The yarn looks great knitted at this firm gauge, but I'm not enjoying working stockinette at this gauge, with this yarn and these needles, and I really have no use for this style of garment.

So I'm putting this in time out until I decide what's a better use for the yarn. Knitting as a business means I don't get much time to knit for pleasure, so I want my business knitting to be as pleasurable as possible. It's taken me a few years to get to this realization. I would kill myself knitting things I hated process-wise for the sake of the deadline, and yeah, the end result would look amazing in the magazine photos. But then as a result, I hated knitting.

I don't want to hate knitting.