I'm about to settle in for an evening of knitting and write up a quick update.
Above are my two current knitting projects curled up next to me. At the top of the photo, the blue and deep purple section, is the alpaca blanket that will be a long-term project. I have been working primarily on that this week, mostly because I have been tired in the evenings, too tired to pick up the Westknits shawl, too tired to work on brioche, where the potenitial for an absent-minded mistake is just too high.
Tonight however, I am working on the shawl. I hope to finish the brioche section. I am only three rows shy of doing that, and I am excited.
This section has actually been a long ordeal of a knit. I took it with me to Tucson over Christmas, thinking I would knit it in my hotel in the evenings or early mornings. I knew it would not be a good knit for the craziness of family gatherings. But what I actually spent most of the week in Tucson doing was learning how to fix errors in brioche. That is not an easy process. After a week of effort and the occasional knitting of a row only to rip and discover even more errors, I actually began to get the hang of picking up and repairing mis-knit stitches in this complicated pattern. In the process I learned to appreciate the stitch even more, even if figuring it out felt like standing on my head.
But then, when I finally started knitting again, on the fifth and final repeat, I had learned so much that, when I looked at my knitting, I saw all the places I had gone wrong, all the way back to the first row of brioche. I contemplated the situation and realized that there were so many errors that it would actually take me far longer to fix them than just to rip the whole section and begin again. So I ripped and flew back to Knoxville with less done on the shawl than when I began. Even though I made no actual progress, I felt that I had made great leaps in knitting knowledge.
Those leaps weren't enough to make me want to pick the project up again however. I was home a week before I flew out again, this time to Key West, Florida. I did not even look at the shawl during that period. But I did pack it in my suitcase. And I did actually knit most of the brioche section while I was in Florida, sitting happily on my shady balcony in the afternoons, or indoors if I was fleeing from the heat. Knitting time contributed to my enjoyment of the trip. I had one row I had to partially rip, but otherwise, this time around all went smoothly. When I left Key West there were three rows remaining in the brioche section.
Notice that nothing has changed since I returned, 5 days ago. The first couple of days back I was too tired for anything but mindless knitting, and I was definitely not up for the intricacies of brioche repair. There is a reason it is good to have a mindless project on the needles while working on something more complicated.
Tonight, I shall finish this section. Or at least that is my hope. I will finish it this weekend. Here is another photo. I was hoping for greater detail, but my focus is a little fuzzy. As long as the knitting is not fuzzy all is good.
