Trying To Grow

Did you ever read The Hotel New Hampshire, in which the physically small character Lily refers to her creative attempts as "trying to grow"? That's kind of where I'm at with my knitting right now. I feel I can't keep doing the same old thing. Heck, if I'm going to spend so much of my time doing this, I should at least get really good at it. Time to learn new things, to challenge myself, to not give up when it gets hard. Time to grow.

Thus I am knitting Bombus. When I originally cast this PomPom pattern on a few weeks ago, I thought of it as just a cool cardigan that I'd like to knit. Then the stitch pattern and the construction totally whooped my butt. I had to rip back and restart several times. There is a twelve row Bubble pattern knit over short row shaping and raglan increases - no walk in the park. I was tempted to chuck it until I got a hold of myself.

I went back to basics and practiced the stitch pattern on a separate swatch until I felt I had a good understanding of it. I used whatever wound yarn I had at hand. (I forgot I had this gorgeous Hemp for Knitting and now want to find something special just for it).

The project yarn I chose is a lovely woolly DK that I know will be cozy and satisfying when knit up. It's slightly more warm in tone than I was able tp photograph on an overcast day.

I ended up drawing a schematic of every row with notes that perhaps only I can understand. I marked every increase, every count between markers and every row of the Bubble progression. I am determined not to let the math defeat me and if this is what it takes, then that is what I must do. Taking it one step at a time and with liberal use of stitch markers, I am now off and running. Exciting! Stay tuned.