Now for Something Completely Different

I explained in my last post about all the knitting that is going on surrounding my siste-in-law and her gestating twin baby girls, right? Right. And how I gave up on the idea of christening blankets, which turned out to be a good idea as I guess my mother-in-law had been wanting to do that anyway. So I guess everyone wins...?

Either way, I still needed something to knit. I wanted it simple after that monstrosity of a lace-weight lace blanket, but still in theme. This is kind of the idea the nursery is going: 

And it just so happened I had gray yarn in my stash from my master plan of knitting for babies. So I went rooting through my Ravelry and found this pattern which seemed appropriate: Radiating Star Blanket. I figured they would need actually warm blankets, this being Michigan, and the star pattern would fit in with the theme of the nursery, color- and shape-wise. It's knit in a circle, which is great for me, and it's mostly knit stich and yarn overs, with a few decreases to keep it even. I started in and everything was going swimmingly:

Isn't the star pretty? The problem came when I left the pattern at home for a day. I figured I knew more or less what was going on with the pattern of yarn overs and decreases, I wanted to knit, so I just kept going. Whoops. 

Not a bad whoops at all. See the pattern is supposed to cut out almost rectangular sections at regular intervals, like so:

From Ravelry user jackik71's Big Star

I got the first iteration started, but missed the turn off to start the one after that. Do you follow me? So there's the little star with 8 points, then a secondary bigger star off of that, then a third after that going out, with each section getting bigger but in the same general shape. Around the 3rd iteration they stop looking like petals or points and start looking more like rectangles. I missed that bit. So now I have the central star and the first points coming out from that:

See the star in the middle and the big points coming out from each pair?

All well and good, but now I'm off pattern. Do I try to get back on pattern, just with larger and larger sections each time? NO. Man that sounds like a lot of work. What I did instead was finish up the secondary points, then continue outward with the spiraling increases that actually increase the blanket's circumference. Don't worry, all will be clear by the time I knit a few more rounds. 

Look, it makes sense to me, it keeps life very very simple for this project, and I think it will make the star(s) in the middle more distinct anyway. Until I'm proved otherwise, we're going with this. 

I also need to get started on the project I'm actually SUPPOSED to be making as part of the mother/daughter-in-law swap. In lieu of blankets, they picked out these Christmas sweaters:

Modeled by the ugliest collection of baby dolls I have ever seen.

The twins are going to be November babies, so the Christmas sweaters will be their outfits for the first Christmas cards of their lives. Sister-in-Law H picked out the Christmas tree one:

With Sad Baby Doll model

and the snowman one: 

With Sleeping Baby Doll model

These were in an attempt to be gender neutral, as at the time she didn't know what they would be. The only alteration she wanted made was a red and white striped scarf, rather than gray. Whatever. 

Since I bought all the yarn and patterns for the blankets, my mother-in-law got the materials for the sweaters:

The Christmas tree yarn. Oddly named "Army Green", which doesn't seem quite right.

And the variety for the snowman. 

The hats, scarf, and booties I have no problem with. The problem I have is with the sweaters themselves. I think they're ugly. Seriously, set-in dropped shoulders on infants? Cardigans: great idea. Larger sizing so clothes go on easier: perfect. But sewing together and seaming up a sweater that small? Come on, give me a break. I am occasionally about challenges, but as we already found out, knitting is often something I want to be easy. There's enough stress and complication in my life without my knitting being irritating. So I'm scouting around for a different pattern that has sensible raglan shaping in the right gauge. 

No one will know the difference :)

The Point of It All...

So, here on this side of the world, there's been a bit of a knitting slump.
Remember this sweater?

I was worried about not having enough of the baby blue to finish the sleeves. I tried to be smart and before starting the sleeves I split the remaining blue yarn into two balls so at least the sleeves would be more or less even lengths. Good in theory...until my house became a mess and I now cannot find the 2nd ball of blue yarn to do the second sleeve. I am currently trying to decide if I should pitch the darn thing or just put it on scrap yarn and hope the other ball turns up eventually. 

Also, remember this one?

This was the start of one of two heirloom christening blankets for my soon-to-be nieces. I foolishly picked the harder of the two to start, figuring that it would take more time. Soon after this my mother-in-law, who is a highly accomplished lace knitter, approached me and asked if I would be willing to split projects with her. She was going to make two Christmas sweaters for the babies, but lace is more her thing. We agreed to each do one blanket and one sweater, which seemed a more doable division of later. I got to the end of the border, a few rows past the picture above and was at the start of the lace pattern. We had a long road trip coming up, so I decided to wait until I had hours of free time in the car to figure out the pattern. There were many trials and travails that I won't go into, but long story short I got 5 rows into the lace pattern, of the right side lace rows, after 5 or 6 hours of work, and Every. Single. One. Of. Them. had gone wrong. Every one. Each requiring much 'tinking' back or correction in farther rows. I was heartily sick of the damn thing, and I was only 10 rows in to the 44 row lace section, of which there needed to be 3-4 repetitions for length. Crap. 

I approached my long-suffering and ever-helpful mother-in-law and gave her my options. I was contemplating ripping the whole thing out and starting over, or just giving it to her. Seriously, I hated every stitch, which is not good when knitting something for people you love. She very graciously agreed that if I was not having fun and it was becoming a chore then it would be better to abandon it and she was willing to take it on, being much more experienced with lace patterns. Seriously, she just won a lace competition, this woman is so good. Check it out: http://www.needleworktraditions.com/needlework-contest/ , it's seriously insane. And she said I could knit both the sweaters, which is more my wheelhouse anyway, so I could still making something for the babies. 

I'm not happy about any of this. It feels like failure, I suppose because it is kind of a failure. The lost yarn is not entirely my fault (even though it mostly is, but I can ignore that), but the blanket absolutely is. I gave up. I chose to be done. 

But I think my mother-in-law had a good point. This whole knitting thing, this crazy obsessive thing that knitters do, is supposed to be FUN. Whether we enjoy the making more than the created object itself, or if we like having the thing that we can say we made with our own hands, or if we like both, knitting is supposed to be fun. Relaxing. This blanket was feeling like a chore and was no longer in any way enjoyable. To complete this blanket would have been nothing but bad vibes and evil thoughts and making me thoroughly uncomfortable and annoyed. None of those things are what I want to wrap around a baby. So I can accept that sometimes you have to give up a project for the sake of your sanity and that's okay. Just as I've been coming to accept that my ability to help people or not at work is not a measure of my worth as a human, I should accept the same with my knitting. My ability to produce knitted things of any quality is not a reflection of my ability to be a worthwhile human being. That may seems like a rather extreme comparison to make, but we all judge our own self-worth by something and more often than not it's not a fair scale. 

Don't be afraid to give up on something that is not making you happy, especially when it's something so inconsequential and something that is supposed to be fun.