I’m realising I really prefer to design things myself; most of the stuff I’ve made or plan on making, is stuff I imagined myself. The ridiculous Analogue Amnesty yarn hat is supposed to resemble a record on a record-player (loosely speaking) and I’ve used silk because I wanted the end hat to be as soft and comforting as the music on the tape with which the darker yarn is plied. But the jump from silk to handpsun creates unpleasing tensions on the fabric, and the square shape of the decreases just doesn’t look lovely when worn. I also made the hat far, far too big. I propose to decrease in a much more circular fashion – not quite reducing in a circle pattern, (8 sts every other row, spread evenly ) but instead by 6 sts every other row. And I plan to integrate a strand of white bamboo leftover yarn in with the silk, to even out the fabric thickness throughout the hat. The failed first effort is a reminder to me that I must do my knitting maths.

With the Fyberspates gloves, I think in the end I must gauge swatch for my hands as they are quite tiny and the prescribed number of stitches is too large for them. I also think that the gorgeous mobair/fyberspates yarn combo makes a slightly-too-chunky seam inside the fingers of the gloves, so I propose to adapt this pattern in knitty for thick DK yarn and re-knit the gloves in the round.

I think the candy-cane walking-stick-cosy needs to be revised, but it may be the kick in the butt I need to learn Intarsia. One just can’t strand easily or neatly across 6 stitches… the other option there is to make each band of colour 3 sts wide instead of 6. And it’s not necessary to do such a pattern in mosaic stitch. So I think to complete this satisfactorily, I need to invest in some ziplock bags and cast on again. It could be a good first-date/first impressions cosy for Valentine’s day!

I’ve been reading a lot about stash management in people’s blogs, and projects like the little brown dress project have really inspired me to think more carefully about what I consume and make. I’ve realised – and it’s obvious from this post – that I find it much easier to buy yarn than to knit with it. But the pleasure of making small leaps in understanding (such as the mitered square, or learning how to knit a perfect circle) far outweighs the guilty pleasure/pain mix of acquiring more yarn. I also was upset this Christmas not to be able to give everyone hand-knit items. So I’m slowly going to turn everything in my stash into gifts/practise/garments, and resist the temptation to invest in more yarn until I have mastered the skills I need to be able to realise all the great designs I have in mind.

In summary, my disappointing January start has also been a time of review, exploration, realisation and recognition, and it’s put me in better stead for a year of considered knitting and intense learning. I really can’t recommend making mistakes highly enough – in spite of my last post’s bleak outlook, learning curves are sexy.