The benefits of small projects are many. You can work with exquisite and costly yarns without mortgaging the farm. Errors are easier to spot and correct. Working to gauge is not as important in accessories so there's less need to knit swatches. And there's the possibility of actually completing a project in less time than it takes to grow out a bad haircut.
I embraced the small project and happily cast on toques and purses, socks and scarves, fingerless gloves and Christmas stockings, a yoga bag and a donkey destined for a knitted nativity. I have a lovely little stash of hand knits set aside for gift giving - although I'm not sure who on my list would appreciate half an ass.Then Carol announced the June knit along would be a top-down cardigan. I've knit a few sweaters in my day and I know that by the time I cast off the final stitch, I'm likely to be heartily sick of whichever yarn/color/pattern I've chosen so I was prepared to give this one a pass until I saw the sample sweater. It was nearly identical to one I'd considered purchasing for myself a few days earlier. Carol assured me it wouldn't take a lifetime to complete and she had the perfect yarn in stock, Elsebeth Favold's Silky Wool in an oatmeal that would co-ordinate with several items in my wardrobes including the fine layer of dog hair that covers everything I own. "How bad could it be?" I asked myself and "everyone else is doing it" I thought as I plunked down my Visa.
"How bad can it be?" Pretty bad I concluded a week later having knit, ripped and re-knit the first 4 inches of the yoke several times. It's not a complicated pattern and I don't usually stress over small mistakes - as Carol says "there are no knitting police". But it seemed that every stitch I dropped or twisted was in a spot where it would be clearly visible once the sweater was completed. And I was having second thoughts about my color choice. While I like to wear neutrals, I prefer to knit in bright colors. Emerald green or shocking pink yarn nestled in my knitting basket calls to me but a sweater's worth of oatmeal yarn is a whole lot of beige.
I called my friend Jan. "Why am I doing this?" I asked. "Because everyone else is?" Yes. "And if everyone else at knitting group decided to jump off a bridge, would you?" Yes.
I persevered, completed the yoke and embarked upon the body of the sweater - 360 stitches X 15 inches of stockinette, an eternity of beige that put me in mind of the Gobi desert. Dull beyond belief but at least I had reached the "easy" part. Until I realized that in my boredom I'd somehow switched from knitting side to side to knitting in the round. I was faced, yet again, with ripping back several hours worth of work.
I called my sister. She laughed herself silly. (Which was why I called her. My sister finds crafting mishaps endlessly amusing. It isn't schadenfreude, she laughs at her own mistakes as well as those of others. It's recognition that knitting isn't brain surgery and mistakes are seldom life threatening. I needed a reality check.) "Why don't you rip the whole thing out and find another use for the yarn?" she asked. I couldn't muster any enthusiasm for embarking on a second project involving 800 grams of beige; the only other use for the yarn that came to mind was using it to stuff the donkey. I toddled off to the yarn shop and asked Carol to rip back the sweater to the yoke so I could try again.
By the third week of June it seemed everyone else had completed their sweaters. They proudly modeled their creations - I noted most had chosen brights - sapphire blue, yummy raspberry. A few had enjoyed the project so much that they'd cast on second sweaters and several had chosen to alter the pattern and knit pullovers in the round but it was too late for me to salvage my earlier error and turn it into a design element.
They spoke excitedly about the July knit along - socks - exactly my kind of small project. I was sorely tempted to join up - everyone else was doing it. I resisted. I don't know that I've finally learned to not jump off bridges - at least of the knitting variety - but it appears I have several more weeks in knitting purgatory to contemplate the error of my ways.
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