(1) I will have only one active handknitting project and one active machine knitting project at any given time.
(2) Before I start a new knitting project, I must "close out" one of my stalled out/abandoned projects.
(3) I won't buy yarn for a new project unless I have finished an active project and a back-log project. (I'm having a seriously difficult time with this one.)
(4) Socks don't count.
So now the point of this blog -- my most recent "new" machine knitting project has become a hopeless stalled-out mess. Several years ago I bought some Fiesta rayon boucle in a color called "Iris." Despite the years and all the trouble it has given me, the colors still thrill me:
I had the yarn for a while, wondering what to do with it, when one day I was perusing Vogue Knitting on the news stand and saw...
Same yarn, different color. Simple stockinette, perfectly complimented by the picot trim on the neck and hems. I wanted something a little more fitted, with short sleeves, and with shaping to fit my mother-of-three body. I worked out my own dimensions for the project. I swatched. I let the swatch rest. I measured and calculated and double checked. I knit the back and held it up to my shoulders and...
It is too small. My error, in hindsight is that I assumed the weight of the rayon would cause the fabric to grow slightly. I normally add an inch or two to the charted dimensions to compensate for the machines' tendency to knit slightly tighter row gage on the garment than on the swatch. But for this project I thought the fabric weight would off-set the machine factor. I was wrong.
Now let me say that this yarn is a collossal PAIN IN THE ASS to work with. It is rayon, so it slips and slides all over the place if you're trying to keep a ball in one piece, or if you're trying to cast on a hand-knitting needle. But it is boucle, so it sticks to itself at every turn, especially if you're trying to wind a hank into a ball. Think 8 hours on hands and knees on the guest room floor, unknotting the damned stuff. For ONE hank. And it just loves to clump up in tight snarls on the yarn guides of the tension pole.
I know I should rip this out and start over so that this can be a sweater I love instead of another pretty closet decoration. I just have not been able to get myself over that hump. I'm hoping that this public confession will break the impasse. Especially because there are two projects in the latest Interweave Knits that I want to use the machine for...
