My compulsive nature impels me to blog my projects in sequence. Is it needless to say that my failure to do this, as evidenced by my meager post count for the past three months attests, stifles me? It may be, but it's still cathartic to put it down in black and white, or black and yellow as is the actual case.
Where I seem to have mastered the hiccups to fend off the loss of my coveted knitting mojo, I have not found the magic bullet to regain its blogging cousin.
In the early days of ravelry, there was concern that people would put all their effort into maintaining their projects page and reduce, or omit, their blogging altogether. In my own case, it hasn't held back my blogging as much as it has reduced my blog reading. I find my web surfing time is often spent reading the drama threads (go rubberneckers!) or perusing patterns and projects, rather than lurking my favorite knitblogs.
But in the past few weeks, as I've reflected on my blogging, I've come to realize that the Rav projects page may help me regain my blogging stride.
The one thing I cannot change is that each post I write is fueled by an emotional attachment to a project or an idea, or a commingling of both. It is a long drawn out stream of consciousness revelry that is reigned in and shaped, taking a significant amount of time and energy. Once I am separated by the emotional bond to a project, which happens when I begin to forget the stages of it's evolution, there can be no posting about it.
In the past week or two, I've come to realize that Ravelry may be able to help me with this. It is pretty easy jotting down notes on each project page such as the dates I worked on a project, as well as which part of the project was knit. If in reviewing the notes I can recall the stages of a project, I may be able to reconnect to the emotional vein I need to feed my blogging.
One project I've been taking notes on is my Downpoor Boot Socks. I began this project over a month ago. The pattern is the Uptown Boot Socks from the Interweave Knits Favorite Socks book. I've only used the pattern to glean the cabled motif. As the rest of the sock looks knit up in a basic sock pattern I just reverted to my own, rather than waste the time referencing the book.
These socks will be a Christmas gift to my eldest niece, Sarah. Although I had loved the STR colorway Downpour in it's stranded picture online, I absolutely abhorred how it looked with the colors separated, en skein.
It was the middle of winter when I received it as a gift and the cool gray tones grated on my sun- and greenery-starved nerves. As predicted by another blogger, Nell of Chicken Knits fame, I think, I did grow to fancy this colorway once the gray days of winter were a distant memory.
40% of the first sock was probably knit around the time I cast on. It then lay for three or so weeks untouched in my knitting bin as I turned my attention elsewhere. Last week, as I lay miserable on the couch home sick, I picked it up with a vengeance while rewatching Season 2 of Heroes on the Roku.
It's been a pretty sockless summer, so I had forgotten how fast socks will knit up during a couch marathon; I knit the remaining 60% of the sock that afternoon and evening. And as there is nothing like progress to spur on knitting, I've cast aside nearly everything else, feeding the urge to see these completed ASAP.
I was so happy to see the colors didn't pool too egregiously on the cuff. On the foot it's a different story. It became evident immediately that, even with the same number of stitches, the fact that only half the sock was now cabled changed the tension enough to result in significant pooling.
I frogged back once, maybe twice. When my stitch count changes made no impact, I accepted the pooling and moved on. The fear of a too tight (or too loose) sock is greater than my aesthetic concerns over pooling.
This weekend I made headway on the second sock. For some reason, I always make mistakes on the second sock. And the problem isn't my note taking, it is my overconfidence. My mind always falls into the trap of believing that having all the details worked in the first sock will equate to perfect knitting. Nine times out of 10 I ignore some crucial detail and I'm in froggsville.
My problem this time was with the heel. I had to frog it not once, but twice, to get it right. Some yarns look pretty frazzled on the third go around, but the STR holds up very well. I really like the thick sturdy twist of this yarn.
Hopefully I'll have this project finished up by the end of the week. Now I'm off to see how much doo doo I got myself in by commenting in a political thread on Ravelry yesterday.
