Faffing About or Why I will always have too much wool

I have quite a lot of wool. In a way this is not surprising since I knit a lot. On the other hand I often think  if I knit so much why does my pile of wool not get smaller?

(And yes, the obvious answer would be that it's because I buy it quicker than I knit it, but then I've hardly bought any this year, because honestly, when you look at the plastic boxes full of yarn, you have to think that really I will never need to buy any more wool ever. In my life. And from a purely logical, non-knitting point of view that would undoubtedly be true. Knitters however  know that  this is not the way the world of knitting works.)

 

Take yesterday as a good example of how things do work in the  world of knitting, or at least the corner of it which I inhabit. Mind you taking yesterday, which was Friday, involves us first  in a visit to Thursday and a Sock Disaster. See how already it's getting complicated?

 

I haven't been knitting socks for long so I'm not hugely experienced. I do know which size needle to use and how many stitches to cast on for socks for me (56) and how many to cast on for the OH (60). And as I was making a pair for brother-in-law for Christmas I thought I would make it the same size as I do for OH since he and this brother have much the same sized feet.

 

On Thursday evening I finished the first sock of the pair. I had made the foot rather longer than the pattern seemed to suggest because any idiot could see that the suggested length was too short. I then called OH to come and try it on for size. I am pleased to report that as far as foot length went, it was just fine. In other dimensions though it was a bit lacking. It was tight on the leg, it was particularly tight on the foot, and all in all my happy certainty that for a man's sock, unless it's for Peter Dinklage or Robbie Coltrane, you cast on 60 stitiches went for a Burton.  

 

Now at that point I had a choice. I could have tried the sock on  and if it fitted appropriated the pair myself. I could have cast on sock 2 in a bigger size, resolving to reknit sock 1 to match when I had finished sock 2. Or I could have pulled out the sock I had just finished and started again.

 

I daresay I know knitters who would each have opted for one of those alternatives. I also know a lot of knitters who would have done exactly what I did, which was to put the finished sock and all associated paraphernalia into a project bag and resolve to start knitting  something else entirely the next day.

 

So now we're at Friday (again). Overnight I had decided what I was going to knit, always assuming that I could find it and get it out, while ensuring I didn't rebreak my ankle - and yes, a lot of my wool is 'stored' under the bed,  how did you guess? And as it happens I managed to retrieve what I was looking for, which was 6 balls of Rowan pure wool 4 ply in a shade Rowan call eau-de-nil. The wool came along with two suggested scarf patterns; a lace one and a cable one  and was a 'gift' several years ago when I briefly joined Rowan International.

 

Now if you're wondering, the reason I didn't knit it up at the time I got it  was that  I couldn't decide which pattern to use. That was because in those days I hadn't knitted any lace and didn't think I could cope with the lace pattern without making lots of horrible mistakes and maybe abandoning the thing half done and totally demoralising myself in the process. Alert readers are now asking why then I did not simply use the cable pattern, or am I perhaps  rubbish at cables as well? And the answer to that is that no, I am not rubbish at cables; in fact I am quite good at them, if you can describe yourself  as quite good at something as mundane and uncomplicated as knitting stitches slightly out of the order they are on the needle to make them twist round one another. And that dear readers  is the main  reason that I didn't knit the cable pattern. It was described as 'an alternative', which meant to my mind that the lace was the 'real' pattern for 'proper' knitters and the cable one was a cop out for the less skilled. I didn't want to think of myself as copping out, or indeed as less skilled,  so I decided to put it all to one side until I could cope with the lace.

And other wool and other projects and indeed a grandchild came along and I haven't thought much about this particular wool since then. Until Thursday night when I thought perhaps I could get that Rowan wool out and knit that lace scarf now. So that was a decision.

Then on Friday morning I looked at the pattern and saw that it wasn't a scarf so much as a huge cowl and lovely though it was cowls aren't that common in the UK and I couldn't think of anyone I could give it to. I wondered about just knitting it as a scarf, but that would have meant working out a border for it and I wasn't convinced I could do that. So then I looked at the 'alternative' cable pattern; because now I wouldn't see that as copping out, but even though that was a scarf and not a cowl I didn't like the beginning or the end of that. It looked like it might curl up which isn't a desirable attribute in a scarf really, although better than curling in, if it comes to it. Ask me how I know!

OK, then. So now I needed a new pattern suggestion. Ravelry is the obvious resource for pattern snuffling and I took myself off for a browse. I didn't put many filters on my search which I suppose explains why, from being sure I was going to knit a scarf I suddenly found myself looking at adult cardigans.  Nice cardigans, and I could do with a cardigan. And toddler dresses. Beautiful, soft little toddler dresses that I would have loved to put on a daughter. If I'd ever had a daughter. Should I make msyelf a cardigan? Even though the colour isn't really me. Some of them looked interesting to knit. Perhaps I should do one of these little dresses, never mind the fact that I don't know anyone with a little girl the right age. Or there again I came here looking for a scarf pattern and there are about a gazillion to choose from.

It's the curse of the modern age, too much choice. I got up knowing I was going to knit a specific scarf with a specific pack of wool and by 2 in the afternoon I was unsure of what I was going to knit and what I was going to do with it when I had, and I hadn't knitted a single stitch.

But the story does have a happy ending because I finally decided to make the Falling Water Scarf, which is a pattern on Ravelry I have often looked at and thought about knitting. And, if I've done the maths right, there should be enough wool left over to make a little dress as well.

So that was a result. But I lost five hours of knitting time to all the faffing about. If I'd just got up and cast on I could have been a ball of wool down by nightfall.