And now for current projects.
Upon finishing up the purple sweater and coordinating scarf, I was filled with ambitious plans to attack the stash of pending projects. The first thing I grabbed was a project from one of the early boxes from L'Atelier's magical mystery box tour, which I wrote about here. I have failed miserably both in terms of knitting the projects from this knit-along and in keeping you up to date on the more recent box additions. I hope to do better in the future.
In mid July I had great plans. I figured I could knit up this scarf in a week or two, and that I could barrel through some other small projects as well. Never a good idea to count your chickens before they hatch, as they used to say. The scarf is not difficult, but it is a little fiddly. Above is the photo of the scarf from the L'Atelier website. As you can see there are areas of the scarf knit in the Colorissimo, and contrasting (or coordinating) areas knit in the Beaded Silk and Sequins Light. I remember loving the combination of yarns as seen in the skein, and loving my imagined version of this scarf, based on my memory from the zoom reveal, and the two skeins of yarn, as seen above.
I cast on July 17th, filled with hope. I soon became frustrated. For one thing, I had started a new chemotherapy regimen, paclitaxel, and although I initially felt much better than on the previous regimen, I was very quickly hit with neuropathy, first in my feet and then in my hands. I am managing this, better and first, and now less well, with drugs, and since the effects of the chemotherapy are cumulative, I am quite hopeful that we will be soon adjusting my medications as I have the third, and penultimate, dose of paclitaxel next week. Anyway, I found that I could knit, but could only knit very slowly, needing to rest my hands every couple of rows or so.
I did not have access to the pattern photo when I began the project, only the written pattern, but I mostly liked what I saw. At least until I got to the first repeat of the Artyarns Beaded Silk and Sequins Light. The pattern directions were to cast on with the Artyarns, and then switch to the Colorissimo. To finish, one would pick up the cast on and repeat a lace repeat at the bottom of the scarf, which one can see clearly in the L'atelier photo shown above. The problem was that, although I had no issues with the way the cast on row appeared on the scarf, I took a strong disliking to the insertion of the Artyarns into the Colorissimo. The color was not far off, but just enough to make me troubled, and I strongly disliked the combination of these particular textures, even though I often love contrasting, and even disconcerting contrasts. Looking back on the L'Atelier photo now, I am not surprised at my reaction, and think that had I had access to the photo, I would have simply left out the Artyarns from the beginning. But there is no point of fretting over these things; one of the constant challenges in knitting, is the process of moving from the imagined interpretation of what we see and the actual realization of the finished product. Knitting then is a very good metaphor, and training practice for life: If one is not open to stopping, reconsidering, moving backward perhaps, and starting again, one is never going to get anywhere.
I ripped out the Artyarns and continued with Colorissimo alone. That took a while because my fingers were not working well, and the slippery yarn, combined with those adorable little sequins, which snag on everything, would have been slightly problematic in the best of circumstances.
I adored the scarf as it progressed however, adored the simple, 4-row, lace pattern. The problem was that my fingers did not adore the pattern as much as I did, although I suspect that generally my fingers are simply not up for anything at all fiddly at the moment. The two rows of garter stitch were a problem. The problem was with the wrap and cross section of the pattern, which is actually not difficult. It took me over half of the sweater for me to figure out a way that my constantly numb and tingling fingers could actually hold and cross the stitches consistently and evenly. Even so that did not speed up the knitting.
In the end however, no matter how long this took me to knit, I love the final result. It is light and airy, and hopefully it will be warm, but not too warm for Tennessee. But then, Tennessee winters are highly variable, so like all woolen things, there may be winters of heavy rotation and winters where wool rarely shows its head. As of yet, I have become probably a bit more warm-blooded, but not yet as warm blooded as the natives. Of course that may have changed completely after this cancer season as well. Who knows.
Anyway, if you look closely at the scarf above, you will notice that I pulled the initial cast-on with the Artyarns Silk and Sequins Light out, picked up the Colorissimo and knit a new end border in garter stitch. This is somewhat different than the pattern, but I am happy with it. I am very happy indeed.
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