Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Bogdown and its causes

I finally finished the front of the Mariner tunic on Saturday, and I was musing over why certain projects get set aside for long periods. For example, this one sat with 20 rows to go for a couple of weeks. The answer is in the little white thread lines (click for larger, if you want).

Those aren't lifelines. They're marker lines, letting me know where to count from. When a piece of knitting gets stretched and misshapen during the knitting process, I have trouble aligning the stitches unless it's all-stockinette, alla time.

The problem here was that (as often happens) I apparently lost count of rows. I looked down at my hatchmarks at some point, and the count I had was clearly not as many rows as I had; just as clearly, I had kept on knitting past where a pattern change needed to have happened. I needed to rip back, but how far? No idea. I had to recount the rows. Recounting, for me, takes good light, a needle and thread, and a little focus. I rarely have much focus at all, so I stuffed the thing back in the bag until Saturday.

In the end, it was easy — I drew my line, carefully lining up the stitches and making sure I was all in one row, counted, and I only had to rip back one(!!) row. And then finish the front.

So often, things get stuffed away for months just because I'm momentarily confused and don't want to take five minutes of focus to figure things out. Kind of unfortunate. I need, sometimes, to NOT multitask. Just, ya know, for a few minutes of my life.

Next up: casting on the back. Guess why this isn't going to get started right away? Well... I'm not sure which cast-on I used (it's one of two), and so I have to knit a couple swatches, one with each, and compare to see which one the front looks more like. Guess what project is stuffed back into its bag?

{sigh} I'm sure someday I'll be a Better Person (TM). ;-)

6 comments:

Ashley said...

Very cute pattern.

I love the purple color

sheep#100 said...

Uh oh, time out for the Marnier...again!

Elaine said...

I know the feeling. I keep putting down my daughter's sweater (her twin brother's is finished but for the buttons) and just can't get into knitting it.

Earin Marybird said...

I know what you mean about hitting a snag then moving on instead of working it out. You think, this is going to take forever to fix - I can't deal with it now. Then when you finally do (sometimes years later) it's like. Oh. Really? This was all that screwed me up? Your mind can be your worst enemy. I am so glad it was one row. I think I should keep better notes on just what the heck I am doing with a project. I did one of the Irish Hiking Scarf wrist warmers yesterday and had to frog half of it when I discovered I was off on my row count. Did I bother to use my katcha-katcha? Nooooooo.

You are a fine person. Right now. Today.

Elinoire said...

One row! Woo!

Seriously, that's hardly a mistake at all. It shouldn't count. And you should get extra bonus points for fixing it.

Anonymous said...

I absolutely agree with you, it happens so often here with me as well: I do something, run into a problem - usually a small one - and obviously can't be bothered to take the 5 minutes necessary to figure it out. The thing I'm working on gets packed away, I find it again a while later and solve the problem in no time. It's strange, isn't it? And exactly as you said - sometimes it'd be better if we'd not multitask. But I think multitasking sits so deep inside of us girls that we can't do any differently, even if we tried ;)
I really love how your tunic is coming along, it's going to be a real beauty and I can't wait to see it finished!