K’s Choice – Not an Addict

I spent all day yesterday knitting, and it was rather glorious. Making myself do this weekly crafting post is a great boot in the butt to encourage me to work hard on developing my skills and completing projects, so definitely hooray for that.

Small practice pieces.

The backs aren’t supposed to be this sort of sloppy.

Yesterday’s specific thing was learning the art of intarsia. Intarsia is basically doing another colour within the main colour, but you’re not supposed to overlap on the back. Which ended up with me having to ask my extraordinarily talented knitting pattern designing friend Miriam Felton about the actual production of intarsia. The pattern for this start in my book called for only three skeins of wool. As you can make out from the back sides, that doesn’t make for the tidiest knitting. She conceded it’s fine to ‘cheat’ that way over say, seven or less stitches, but that it did boil down to needing at least five skeins of wool.

All the skeins!

So I looked at the pattern, and took a deep breath, and dived in. I was really happy that I made a point to do some quick practicing, ’cause the whole twisting wool around each other to make sure the sections of colour interlock smoothly is sort of important. I also made a point to number my impromptu bobbins to help me keep my skeins a bit better organized. Even with the practice, it was a bit unnerving at the start, but by the time I finished the section, I felt that I had a pretty good grasp of the method and results. It doesn’t mean I’m likely to start going ga-ga for colourwork, but it’s certainly less intimidating now.

Front.

The back with the strands not woven in. Pretty tidy, non?

So yes, I’m well pleased with my progress, and to have the basics of yet another part of the knitting thing figured out. I think it’s coming along a lot faster now that I’m a bit stuck into it. That is to say — new techniques are less scary because it all builds in a very basic and solid foundation. Crochet, on the other hand, can be a bit more flowery and confusing. I’m certainly not against crochet and will probably pick up work on my blanket in the near future, but the combination of a good solid foundation and the versatility within that basic foundation are both widely appealing things.

Beyond that, I’m still waiting to come to. I have a sneaking suspicion that I could get up at 5 in the morning, and I’d still not feel human until after noon. I’m sort of alive right now, though my hands are still a bit like arthritic claws wearing boxing gloves. I hope they unfurl soonish — I’d like to pick my knitting back up! It’s not pain, per se, just stiffness. I’m a total baby about anything that makes my hands less than efficient; I like doing things too much to be anything but vexed when they’re not up to the tasks I wish to accomplish.

For now, I shall seek more caffeine, and hope that it being past noon means brain and body will move into some form of functional. I hope everyone out there is having a good day.

<3