Process vs Product

I have come to the conclusion that I have become a process knitter. Once-upon-a-time, it was all about product: I enjoyed the knitting, but I couldn't wait to sew up the garment and wear it. Not now. Now, I can't wait to cast on the next thing.

I have all but finished the Soft Sweater with Patterned Yoke. It just needs a light block, seaming of the left shoulder, knitting-up the neck, and then sewing up all the other seams. It has lurked accusingly in its knitting bag for the past two weeks, poking out the top to remind me of its presence, making me feel guilty whilst I've turned my attention to the Must Have Cardigan. It is nagging me to finish it.

I'm feeling guilty enough as it is. My UFO list consists entirely of stuff that needs sewing up. Remember the Reynold's Lace Tee? It's waited at least six months to be sewn up (I rationalised that it is too cold to think about wearing summer tops, but even so...).

Then there is a shawl collared "blouse" from the 1930's that I finished knitting TWO years ago. It doesn't even require much seaming, since it has a yoke knitted mainly in the round. I can't rationalise leaving that alone, now, it's cold and the blouse would be perfect to wear to work with my suit. But still it lurks in the knitting basket.

The only thing I've really completed recently is the white sweater in this photo:


And I'm still waiting to get a decent photo of it. (There is a long and involved story behind this sweater, which I'll tell when I've got that photo to show it off.) This sweater waited a year for it's seams and took months to sew up - I'd do a bit and then abandon it, answering the siren call of the needles.

I guess it all boils down to sewing the seams. A couple of years ago, I got paranoid about sewing decent seams. Before then, I'd just whip-stitch the seams and they'd look pretty rubbish but I thought everyone else's were like that too. Then I read the comments on seams in the back of one of my knitting books and realised that mine were a mess and I'd been doing them all wrong. I had to re-learn my seaming technique. It took time. I kept rechecking the book for instructions, so my new seams were much slower to sew. Oh, and I discovered blocking, taking the Yarn Harlot's comments to heart. Again, that slowed me down and became another obstacle in the finishing-off process.

Excuses, excuses. There is no excuse that is good enough. I have plans for these clothes. If I could only bring myself to sew them up. I could wear them now (yes, even the Tee - it can go to work under a suit jacket). We have no plans for today - we have a new garden cupboard being delivered - so it is a perfect day for finishing things off. At the least, I could block the Soft Sweater....

- Pam (Procrastinators'r'Us)

A nice dilema we have here....

OK, I have a problem with my latest sock and I need your input. To do the foot, I need to swap to a different yarn, since I only have 30 grams of the fancy stuff. (This is part of my using-up-the-leftovers program, designed to cut down the number of "I can't make anything with this" balls in my stash.)

The problem: I think this sock would look best with a white gusset and foot (I'll do the toes in the fancy stuff). Opal, who made this yarn, don't do white. These two balls are my closest options - the one on the left is honey-coloured and more orangey-beige in the flesh; the one on the right is more blue, not far off teal.

Have a closeup.

Neither of them work, do they?

On the Angel Yarns website from where I purchased them, both appear much paler. I've used the honey-coloured one on my "prom socks"; I have another half-used sock yarn that will go with the blue.

Can anyone suggest a suitable white I can use? It needs to knit to a tension of 36 stitches and 28 rows over 10cm/4 inches using 2.5mm needles.

- Pam (off to try other websites)

Prom Socks

I mentioned my "Prom Socks" in an earlier post. They are the socks that I knit at the Prom concerts at the Royal Albert Hall.

It's all the Yarn Harlot's fault! If Stephanie hadn't filled my (virtual) ears with the joys of knitting socks and then gone on to show pictures of The Sock at concerts, I might never have considered knitting at the Proms.

To minimise disruption to other concert goers, I knit the socks on bamboo needles and avoid knitting in the very quiet bits.

Here are a couple of shots of the socks I knitted at last year's Prom concerts.


They're made from left-overs. I only had 35g of the paler blue, so combined it with some scraps. If you look carefully, you can see that the toes and half of one heel are knitted in black, whilst the bands are in navy.

Yes, those are my feet and tracksuit bottoms.

To finish, this is a photo of this year's Prom Sock knitting kit, showing the Opal self-patterning yarn I've mentioned previously.

- Pam