Design and Dilemma

Well, here it is Sunday morning and I slept in again; snuggled with Simon until 9:30. Tomorrow morning is going to kill me, but I’m so looking forward to being back at work. I’ve really missed it.

Bizz’s sweater is coming along nicely. The sleeves are taking forever and I’m almost bored with them. I was hoping to have had them done last night. I still have a way to go with them, though and they probably won’t see the blocking board until later this week. While they are on the block, I’ll finish K’s sock (the one I have to replace due to my mistakes). Then it will be on to the sweat shirt sweater, which I have decided to do in black. I just have to decide what colour to make the Om. I’m still leaning toward red, but purple or silver are in the running as well.

While I was knitting the other night, a new sweater design popped into my head. I’m quite excited about it. It is made out of four panels with points on the bottom. The front and back panels will be wider than the side panels. It will have thin shoulder straps, but there will be sleeves knit the same way as the body panels and attached so that the top of the shoulders peek out between the sleeves and the shoulder strap. It will be striped with the stripes getting progressively narrower toward the top of the sweater. I guess it’s not really a sweater, but a knitted top. I’m not sure who I’m making it for. It’s not something that I would be likely to wear. I’m undecided about putting tassels on each of the points. As to colour... I’m not sure whether to go with something bright and fun or something more elegant and dressy. Depending on the colour, this top could be casual or fancy and I’m thinking of integrating a shelf bra. (Might need Bizz to help with that!) I can see it worn with a long straight skirt or palazzo pants. Or jeans.

These two new projects could very well be affecting my excitement about Bizz’s tunic. As I said, the sleeves are taking forever and I really want to start swatching the Om sweater. I dare not do that, though. I might not go back to the tunic! I tend to get excited about new ideas, but if they are not tackled right away, the enthusiasm fades. I start to find fault with the design before I even pick up my needles. Conversely, I get going too soon and discover problems that I hadn’t anticipated along the way. There is a lot of improvisation in my knitting.

Worse yet it finding a new or different technique and having nothing to apply it to. Shadow knitting, slip stitch knitting and mosaic knitting are good examples of techniques that I would love to try, but haven’t practiced (at least not much or with much success) and don’t know how best to employ. My knitting life has been Fair Isle, cables, intarsia, some lace work, some entrelac and lots and lots of knit/purl combination stitches. I’ve dabbled with felting, too. But there’s a whole world of knitting techniques out there and endless ways to create with them. (I need to win the lottery!)

At times I am overwhelmed at how much I love knitting. It’s the perfect craft, I think. It’s a combination of weaving, painting, sculpting and texture with infinite potential. Each stitch, so simply wrapped around a pointed stick, is a tiny step toward a formed fabric. A typical pair of adult socks is comprised of about 15,200 stitches. (Yes, I’ve figured it out!) The sleeves alone in Bizz’s tunic will each have 23,000+ stitches. At about a stitch per second each sleeve will take 6.5 hours to knit. The total time in making the whole tunic will be about 35 hours or 126,000 stitches. (Give or take. I will – because I can – figure it out exactly at some point.)

This brings me to shower time. I must get on with my day if I’m ever to finish these darn sleeves and get this tunic done. My big dilemma with it now is how to sew the seams. I think I will have to invest in some clear thread of some kind. With the variegated yarn fading from one colour to the next, I can’t just use a length of it to sew the seams and not have it seen. I’ll have to do some research (should have done it sooner!) and figure out how best to make this work and look nice. I’ve invested far too much time into it to have it look crappy because the seams don’t match the fabric. Short of cutting small chunks out of a skein and ruining it, it’s either pick a colour and go with it or find an alternative that won’t show. Yes, well, shower first.