Sunday, January 11, 2009

Really it's better to knit in the summertime

I know that sounds crazy — after all, in the winter it's cold (well, mostly cold), and we want warm things, and it feels good to have wool in our hands, right?

Bear with me.

As you can see, I have my little Ravelry ticker-tapes in the margin, now, and they show that I have a lot of projects sitting between 80 and 95%. And mostly this means there is some sort of a finishing thing left to do — generally a finishing thing that I dislike. As you know, I love mattress stitch — that's not the problem. No, usually it's some sort of sewing. Like Kitchener, which accounts for two of the UFOs. And I'm starting to fear that Kiera's sweater will have a similar problem because of sewing up the picot hem — I tried it last weekend, completely mucked up the first 4" (which took about 45 minutes) and will have to try again with more alcohol, or something.

And here's why it's better to knit — or at least to finish things — in summer. A week ago Sunday we had unseasonable weather, about 80°F and sunny and gorgeous (it's still like that this Sunday, too). The cat luxuriated in the backyard all day, rolling and rolling in the warm dust. And in the nice bright light, feeling calm and not cold, fingers supple and not aching, I sat down and actually finished something — that Green Summer T, originally intended for my niece, which only wanted Kitchenering on ONE UNDERARM.

Since August.

Okay, so the other requirement for me to Kitchener is peace and quiet and solitude, and to get all those plus a sunny, gorgeous weekend day, I had to wait until January. Sadly I think this may mean the T-shirt doesn't fit Carson, and will have to find another little girl. We'll see when she tries it on....

Clearly I'm going to have to time my projects better.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

if it's any consolation, the sweater is beautiful! finishing has never appealed to me either. i, however, have adopted the attitude that the knit gift will be done when *it* wills itself to be done.

it just wasn't time yet. ;)

Earin Marybird said...

It is beautiful and I too suffer from the thrill of casting on and after a certain point of knitting like crazy drift over to something new. One just has to bite the bullet at times and do the last bit. Why is that so hard?

Becky said...

What a beautiful T that is, though! Hopefully you'll find that Carson does the same thing that Perry does: he grows up rather than out. Another great reason to knit short sleeves on kid-wear. (and also, I hope that she hasn't grown too far up and that the hem still hits below her waist.)

Karpy said...

Oh valerie, you're an Aries! Love to start things and then run off and start another. Dunno what my excuse is then ... :-)

Anonymous said...

oh my goodness, the hibiscus have gorgeous coloration! yay for zone 10 gardeners and double yay for hibiscus which is hardy. and cute lil shirt too!