Performing Surgery

I love to design sweaters. There is absolutely nothing that gives that feeling of accomplishment like working on and finishing a sweater that you've designed yourself. The only problem with me is....I can't work from patterns. I never follow them. I have issues when it comes to reading directions and sometimes I feel a lot like Stephanie; like I want to shoot my foot off rather than keep making the mistakes I am making.

Okay, here is the deal. Normally, when I design a sweater, I pick up needles and yarn, and just knit. I knit what my heart desires. Sure, there MAY be a sketch but there usually isn't a write up. I have gotten a lot of requests for certain patterns of mine and since I find it so difficult to write up a pattern after I've knit a piece I decided to write up the pattern (charts, etc.) before hand. The only problem with this is I CANNOT FOLLOW A PATTERN. Even though it is MY pattern, I cannot seem to follow it. I tend to do my own thing, and the only problem with that is figuring out what the hell I did after I've done it. So, instead of trying to figure out what I've done, I've been doing a bit of surgery. First I wanted to change a design element, without ripping-accomplished! Then, last night I realized that I crossed a cable the wrong way (on all three cables) so I wanted to fix it without ripping (and this was like 8 rows down with other crossovers in the mix)-accomplished! Finally, after fixing the cables, I realized that I screwed up something else in the cables (I should have learned to read the pattern I wrote by now) so I fixed two of the six mistakes this morning and hope to finish the other four at lunch and finally be able to make some more progress.....AND learn to read the charts I've made.

Did I mention that I love designing sweaters?

Things

I have been sick for well over a week. Not sick, sick. Just sick. Sick of things for one, yes, just things. One thing I AM happy about, though, is that I got the yarn I ordered last week:

The color isn't really actual in either of these. I did the best I could. It's Madelinetosh Worsted in Olivia. I love it. Unfortunately, I cannot start knitting with it yet. I have yet to make much progress on my in-design-AND-knitting-phase sweater...having had to change some of the design elements without ripping. I did a reasonable job doing so, it just took me a week to actually want to do it. So, now I am back to the point where I can knit away. And at some point I am actually going to do that.

I missed knit night last night. I'm not too happy about it, but sometimes you just have to take care of things. Things for me would be my personal life that is hanging on by a very thin and breakable thread. I'm doing what I can.

There will also be a mystery project I am going to start working on either tonight or tomorrow. I'm excited and yet scared of starting this mystery project. It means knitting when it might all be pointless. Taking time, money, and effort when it could all be for not. But, I am going to do it, if for nothing else than, to save my sanity. It will be worked on in tough times. It will be worked on instead of having nights like last night. And I'm hoping it doesn't get knit as fast as it seems it would for all the reasons I have to actually knit it. I will hopefully be able to post some progress on it, and maybe a small picture or two.