11.09.2011

Ruminations

Boy it feels good to be working on a big project again!

Its not the stuff of great blog fodder and the gratification of multiple small pieces I've done in recent months is undeniable but it feels like such a luxury to now be hunkered down in the depths of cabled rows and seed stitch sleeves.

I'm trying to get through one 16 row repeat of the chart every 24 hours. If I make that goal with time to spare then I'm forcing myself to work only on the sleeves. My hope is this pacing will both hold me to task and prevent project fatigue from prematurely relegating Beatnik to the bottom of the basket.

This latter condition often comes about for me when I get overly enthusiastic, race on wards, make a stupid mistake I don't catch because I'm too drunk with glee at the prospect of rapid progress, and then throw the whole thing aside in disgust.

The past few years my knitting has been about gaining technical skill. I would say, to date I've got some mechanical skill but the "technical part" - getting the details not only right but exactly right is what I need to put  more effort into achieving. One such detail,  is maintaining steady, error-free progress. Obviously attempting entirely new-to-me techniques will involve more trial and error but straight up flat cabled knitting is the kind of stuff I started out with back in the last century. I know what I'm doing. The challenge is to avoid the distractions that keep me from doing it.

Towards this end my current watchwords with Beatnik are "pacing" and "focus". As I watch the numbers steadily climb on the row and repeat counters it feels like its working!

I hope your knitting is working out for you today too. Thanks for dropping by!


2 comments:

Mary Keenan said...

Oh, ain't it the truth - there's progress, and there's accurate progress! I swear I spend as much time ripping as I do knitting. Sometimes I think we knitters must be crazy, but then I look at golfers...

LaurieM said...

Taking time to admire your project and spot check the cables is a habit worth cultivating. I sit a moment with the project and trace the lines with my eyes, just to make sure everything is right.

Or take a picture. It's amazing how the different visual makes you look at it differently.