Wednesday 25 February 2009

too practical?

Is it indeed possible to be too practical? It is certainly possible to do too much practical knitting, if only that other endeavours in the sock and project categories get sorely neglected.

Since I instituted my 'knit list' in November last year, all that I have managed to cast on and complete are practical knits (and crochets) - fourteen of them! My sock and project knitting at the time, Baudelaire and the Swallowtail shawl respectively, are still on the needles. This is not, per se, a bad thing. The whole point of the knit list was to restrict the number of projects on the go at any one time and to prevent a proliferation of barely-more-than-cast-on lace shawls, under the mental weight of which I would surely have suffered a nervous collapse.

So there has been some success there at least with being disciplined. I cannot cast on for another pair of socks until I finish my Baudelaire pair. Which means facing them again. Way back on 10 December I discovered two dropped stitches and have barely looked at them since. Until today. I just decided that it was time. Thankfully the two dropped stitches had miraculously been repaired (by me, I guess - I've blocked it out). And like many things that you put off and put off because they seem too dreadful, once I actually started again it was a real pleasure. I'm using a lovely Addi Lace 2.25mm circular and how different it feels in my hands to my current practical project. The change in needle, the change in yarn weight, the change in fabric - going from one project to another. I am in love with these socks again.

And because I do always like to include a photo, here is my current practical project. It is Molly from Debbie Bliss' Junior Knits. This is something that I have wanted to knit since ... well, before baby bear was born I think and here I am knitting the 3-4 year size. I'm using some yarn that I recycled from a Boden cardigan, it's 60 per cent silk 40 per cent cotton and the project is knitting along at a good pace. It is always a bit of a gamble to substitute yarns, particularly fibre content, so I hope that the pattern will hold up in the silk/cotton blend.

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