I am calm. I am serene. I am not going to fling this ball of yarn across the room in a fit of temper. I am calm. I am serene. I am not going to…
Oh! Erm, hello! Didn’t see you there. Oops. Please don’t mind me, I’m just having a little… trouble with a scarf that I’m designing. The sort of trouble that involves unravelling several hours’ knitting and muttering darkly at my yarn whilst I rework the whole thing. This happens a lot, but I’ve learned hard lessons about how it’s never ever worth ignoring those whispers of doubt about your design-in-progress. Sometimes I coolly accept that every ripping-back-and-reworking brings me closer to the best possible result… and sometimes I don’t.
But this is a warts-and-all blog, and since I don’t have any actual warts to show you, I’ll just have to share my knitting failures instead. Just give me a few minutes to stop grinding my teeth and muttering obscenities in the direction of my needles, yeah?
And whilst you wait, let me tell you two bits of happy designing news.
First, I’ve been a little coy about a project that’s been in progress these past few months, but I’m now allowed to show and tell, which is a relief because otherwise I might just have physically exploded with excitement. There’s a fabulous company here in the UK called Little Box Of Crochet. (They ship internationally.) They’ve long had a crochet box subscription service, and have now added an equivalent knitting product – the Little Box Of Knitting. And a few months ago they approached me to ask whether I’d be interested in designing for their July 2021 box. Let’s just say that they did not need to ask twice. In fact, they scarcely had time to finish asking once before I squealed YES YES YES YES YES PLEEEEEEEASE!
At their request, I designed some socks. (Let’s gloss over the next stage, which involved a frantic midnight frenzy of sample-knitting, as described in my last post.) Stupidly, I didn’t take photos of the finished items, so these are photos-of-the-photos in the pattern booklet in the box. Meet the Viticultural socks, inspired by an early spring wander around the garden where I noticed the grapevine returning to life after its winter sleep, and fantasised about the luscious late-summer fruit to come.
If you happen to be a subscriber to the Little Box Of Knitting, I hope you enjoy the making and the wearing of these socks. And just in case you’re not a fan of stranded colourwork (WHYEVER NOT?!) I also designed some striped socks.
So that’s the first bit of happy design news. The second concerns the book on stranded knitting that I was commissioned to write. I haven’t mentioned it lately because things were seeming uncertain for a while, what with the pandemic, my cancer, and some m-a-j-o-r changes at the publisher that had the effect of flinging everything up into the air in a massive confusion of pages.
But conversations have recently been had across the soggy span of the Atlantic. The news is good. A new editor is in post. He’s very keen on the book. The book is happening, albeit rather later than originally intended. This news feels great. Awesome. Fabulous. Exciting. And also a teeny bit scary, because if you peer really closely at my contract, you’ll see that in addition to floating around in a bubble of over-excitement, they specifically mention that I do also need to finish writing the book.
Much of it is done – especially the design work, which is by far the biggest time-nibbler of the entire enterprise. But there’s still a largish chunk of work unfinished, and boy have I learned from bitter, bitter, experience just how rapidly an innocent “Ooh, wouldn’t it be fun to design a quick hat” can degenerate into a six-week hell-fest of re-re-re-re-knitting, because your cool idea for a quirky bumblebee motif just won’t cooperate with the laws of knitting/physics. (Please note: these two sets of laws do not always even comply with each other.)
And so, what at first seems like a cool idea slumps rapidly into a tangled nightmare of frustration, and you realize that the reason nobody has done this before is not – as you’d assumed – because you’re an iconoclastic genius who is way ahead of the game, but because your idea is NOT PHYSICALLY POSSIBLE.
Which brings us neatly (more neatly than my knitting) to the reason for my current sulking TOTALLY JUSTIFIABLE CROSS-NESS. This project isn’t for the book, but it’s been keeping me busy. I’ve been playing with dragonflies. Not literally, you understand, because although beautiful, dragonflies are vicious blighters who’d rip your head off if only they could open their cute little mouths wider than a few millimetres. (Top tip: don’t Google the size of prehistoric dragonflies if you want to sleep peacefully tonight.)
Whilst I’ve been watching the real-life dragonflies flit around the pond enjoying their murderous shenanigans, I’ve also been attempting to recreate their beauty in yarn. My plan is to knit a scarf in the round (so it’ll be double-thickness and cosy as well as pretty), with a cloud of dragonflies swirling and darting and receding into the blue sky above. Stranded knitting is involved, of course.
I still think it’s a workable idea, but I got carried away and overindulged my love of underwater details. This was OK when I knitted a 120 000 – stitch picture in teeny tiny yarn…
…but just resembles a sludgy mess when I attempt similar motifs in fewer colours and far fewer stitches, knitted in chunkier yarn.
But I still have ambition. I’m ripping back and redesigning, and the next iteration is going to be better. This is all a part of the process. I’ll get there. I know this process well. I love-hate it, but I know it.
Perhaps I should get a less stressful hobby. Shark-wrestling, perhaps?
Congrats on your double good news. You found your rainbow after a long year. Love the dragonflies. Not a cowl, knitting in the round gal, but in a moment of insanity I could be tempted. Love dragonflies, but our current bought of wet weather, after a 2 month drought, seems to have sent ours back to the swamp. I do get to commune with the butterflies when I manage to get out in the gardens. Now about your yarn problem. . . . Teresa in soggy Michigan US
Yikes, your weather sounds as crazy as ours! Enjoy your butterflies, even if your dragonflies are lying low. (And thank you for the congrats.)
You do the most amazing colour work, Phil. I’ve done a bit in my time, but yours is another several sky-high levels up. Thanks for the tip on bean/pea growing, I shall have to get an arch for next year.
Well done to Twin 2 for making himself useful too. I look forward to seeing your pictures of the FO. All the best with finishing that book too.
Thank you for all of this! Twin 2 was indeed particularly helpful. If you’re going to do the arch thing, I’d recommend trying to get a sturdier one than the flimsy but cheap one I bought from Amazon. Good luck!
WOW! You amaze me! Your knitting amazes me! Everything you go through amazes me! Can’t wait to hold a copy of your book in my hands. I may only be capable of two color stranded knitting but I can dream!
I don’t deserve such praise, but thank you anyway. And I only use two colours for any row/round in stranded work, so you’d definitely be able to make any of my designs, should you wish to do so!
I absolutely love and admire your work. ❤♥️❤♥️❤
Thank you. <3 I mostly just steal patterns and colours from the natural world, so I can't even take the credit!
Oh, you are wonderful!
Shark-wrestling sounds like fun, eh ? Only you would come up with that concept ! 😀
I think you’re someone whose extraordinarily fertile brain needs – like, NEEDS to be kept challenged. Without challenge the Phil we know and love would sink into a morass of boredom.
Fortunately (or “fertinitly” as a very lovable Italian friend was wont to say), there is an infinite amount of challenge available in stranded knitting – nono, don’t deny it, you tunnel-visioned woman: stranded knitting would challenge Deep Thought, who would take even longer to do it that he did to come out with THAT number ! 😀
You still coping (admirably) ? – no hiccups of any kind ..? GOOD. EXCELLENT. Family allowing you to be merely human, rather than Supermum still ? Good-oh on that, too.
The Little Boxes of sound and look heavenly; but they’re a bit on the expensive side for a pensioner. See, here’s where I can’t get the ancient bonce around international financial stuff: up there in Old Blighty everything costs a ******g fortune compared with Downunder; but you also actually earn a fortune, too, so it evens out where you are but not across the world .. That’s my summary of Money Stuff. [grin]
Having improved the quality of your financial understanding, I shall leave you now AND TAKE THAT LOOK OF RELIEF OFF YOUR FACE !!!!
Tee hee, I smiled (or laughed, as appropriate) at every word of this, and as always I deeply appreciate your kindness.
Actually I can’t take credit for the concept of shark-wrestling, because my children when younger had a book called “Dragon Stew”, that included the words “wrestled in the dark with a mad, man-eating shark”. Having read this book aloud to the boys roughly three million times, many of its lines have very firmly stuck in my memory.
As I love to read your blogs!
Thank you! Much appreciated.
Shark wrestling involves a wearing of hauberk to not be ripped in pieces, so don’t as it’s heavy. I love the socks, they look gorgeous. Just like the cowl. I am happy for your both projects becoming a succes. I love the design part, I don’t like to write it down in 8 sizes. So I admire you. Even if you get side tracked ;>p And dragonfly are gorgeous <3 I don't care if they are efficient murderers. They come in gold, turquoise, red and blue and I love it. Oh, that pea is BIG!
Yes, dragonflies (and damselflies) really are exceptionally beautiful murderers! I could watch them all day. Also, I had to look up what hauberk meant as I’d never heard the word, so thank you for helping me learn something new today!
I found the process as described by you, most interesting. I have ideas occasionally about things to knit but as you say they don’t always work with wool and needles. I love your underwater knitted scene – amazing work. Keep on with the dragonflies please as I will look forward to seeing the finished product.
Thank you for the encouragement! Interesting to read that I’m not the only one whose grand plans don’t always translate into yarny reality.
Your blog continues to amaze and enchant me! I have only intermediate skills in knitting and crocheting, but I dream of a year from now when my 78-yo left arm will be fully functional and I can work to advance my skills. Thanks for being an inspiration!
78-y-o ? SNAP ! [grin] I know a Gigi: I have met her several times in waterside Geelong ..
And thank you Gigi for such kind words! May your arm regain function faster than you’d dared hope…
Phil, your posts never cease to amaze and delight me. Thank you so much for brightening my day during our FIFTH lockdown.
And thank YOU for such generous praise! May your lockdown be brief and effective. Crazy times, huh?
Oops re the frogging! Nice re the box!
Thanks!
Was thinking about you just this morning, wondering how things were going in your neck of the woods, and especially thinking of Robynson! Love your dragonflies and fishies! Hang in there, I wonder why swearing helps so much?!
Thank you so much! I often see a robin around the garden, but I’m never quite sure whether it’s Robynson. I miss Robyn to much. She really was unique.
You truly are amazing! Love those socks but I’m one of those who shan’t be attempting them – every time I’ve tried stranded knitting ……fail, fail fail. Instead I shall just admire your amazing work (and stick to plain, one coloured yarn sock knitting). Love the dragonflies.
I’m so not, but thank you anyway! (And usually if I knit socks, it’s simple ones in self-striping yarn, so normally I’d be with you on that.)
You are so inspirational! You have taken knitting to an entirely different level! Amazing! I feel privileged to read your blogs! Thank you!
I just like to play with patterns and yarn. Your kind words are more than I deserve but thank you anyway.
5:10pm and STILL I see no comments (posted at around 7:00am).
This is a pertickly long haul between posting and being able to read comments. If only I could find a workaround ..
Yes, I’m having a similar issue! If I view using Chrome, I can see the comments, but if I view via the Samsung browser on my phone, I can’t see them. If I was a techie genius, I’d know what to do about this. But… I’m not.
Hmm, I take it back. Not I can’t even see the comments in Chrome!
They’re up, Beautiful ! 🙂
Love the box. I am not generally a subscription box person but I will have to check this one out and see if they will do a one off. I suspect international shipping is prohibitive however. Please stick with the fishes and dragonfly design even if it is making you nuts as I love it. You will get there as you are a design and implementation genius (at least, that is how I see it). I am so glad that you are bouncing back from the train wreck that was your last year. Your posts never fail to make my day better even though I rarely comment.
Thank you so much Debbi, for every single word of this. You are very kind. I’ll keep tweaking it and trying to improve. The past year has been a little crazy but thanks to the warmth of friends at home and online, it’s been manageable.
I really enjoyed your comment about that “little voice” in your head that says “you might want to rip this out”! So nice to know that I am not alone or crazy. Listening to that voice as soon as it happens surely needs to be a learned response as going further just means more to tink!
I love your color work and am anxious to try some of your patterns.
Congratulations on your book and the lovely little knitting box pattern. I have never made socks but it makes me want to try!
All the best to you and your family.
Thank you for all of this! Yes, it’s hard to listen to that little voice… but in the long term, it really does lead to a better outcome. It’s horrible when you carry on regardless and the finished object is just… not right.
Thank you so much for this wickedly funny, nature-inspired, spectacular blog! I look forward to your book, and wish you clear thoughts and flying fingers on your journey to creating it!
Thank you Leanna! Yes, I really ought to get on with writing the book, rather than just talking about it…
So much news! Your sock pattern is stunning. I love how the vibe really changes with the choice of color. What I really enjoy is your use of nature to inspire your patterns. Oh, and that Staedtler eraser did not go unnoticed.
I hope you continue to take care of your health and find wonderful ways to manage the stress.
Ha, as always a delight. Fab news on the book too (pesky contract though, fancy having to FINISH it). Loving the scarf design. Have you considered knitting a chain mail onesie in metallic watery shaded yarn ready for 🦈 wresting – just trying to help. X
Congratulations! I’m so glad the book is back on. You’re a wonder with your designs and a skilled craftsperson to boot.