KnitWeek2016 Pt7: Reflections and plans...

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Hello again,

Here is my final KNITWEEK2016 post. I wanted to wrap up by reflecting a little and sharing my thoughts. Its incredible to think that I finished all 5 projects in October this year. The question that keeps floating in my head is why did I not manage to finish a single project until I set myself an action plan?

The answer of course was a simple lack of conditioning on my part. What does that mean exactly – let me try to explain using sewing as an example. With sewing I used to be quite bad at finishing projects because I would get excited about a new project. But I had to change my way of thinking about what constitutes a completed project. I used to think it was okay to move on to the next project when all that was left were the buttonholes and buttons for example. But it isn’t actually done is it? I set out a new criteria for finished which at first was as follows: a project is finished when it has been photographed for the blog. What this did for me was to simply remove any shades of grey – I couldn’t photograph a garment without a zip or without the hem done. So in time it became an easy metric in my head to use before starting a new project. After a while the conditioning set in and now I am very good at finishing before starting another project (I can’t imagine doing it any other way now).

Now for some reason I had not applied this to knitting. Perhaps its because I don’t take knitting as seriously as sewing. In any case something has shifted in the last few months and I am keen to do more knitting. So from hence forth this shall be my metric applied to knitting as well (from 2017 onwards of course ).

: OWLS Sweater

: Miette Cardigan – I like the eyelets

: Antler Cardigan -I love the yoke.

Lessons learnt:

In the meantime I have learnt a lot in completing and writing up these posts:

Swatch the cable pattern.That way I can see if the yarn works well with cables.
Read other people’s reviews before embarking on a project to get an idea of any issues (common sense really but I wasnt doing this).

There are aspects of knitting I need to gain a better understanding of:

Fit and how to adjust for a great fit
The different cast on and bind off methods available.

Current plans

For now I am doing a little bit of stash busting by knitting some accessories. I finished the Craftsy Knitalong cowl and have started on the hat.

I bought the Andrea Wong Craftsy Class on Portuguese knitting about 3 weeks ago. I started Portuguese knitting 2 days ago and already I can see that it’s how I will be knitting – it’s so much faster and the purl stitch is so easy. I am still learning how to control the tension but I will do a separate post on this.