Potential

As Bailey acclimates to his new home, and we fall ever more deeply in love with our new pet, I'm thinking a lot this week about the beginnings of things. 

Whatever I'm working on, at whatever the stage of the process, I'm always looking ahead to the next thing.  It's not proactivity, or project management, or anything else so noble:  It's good old fashioned Start-Itis.  String Lust.  Wanton neglect of the old in pursuit of the new.  I'm meant to be working a button band for the last thing, but all I can think about is the new blue hat, still in skein form.

We knitters all suffer from this need to move on, to some degree.  It's part of the whole Knitter Mystique.  I'm wondering if there isn't some way to harness the crazy energy of the infatuation stage of a project.  Then I could lay it aside for later, when the Doldrums hit.  Imagine going to the cupboard for a wee dram of New Project Excitement, just when the sea of stockinette, or the nasty heel turn from hell rob us of our knitting momentum...

There must be a way.  I'm sure it would involve some sort of suction, and probably a distillation process.  Then, of course the patenting would be a nightmare, but well worth the trouble...I'll leave those details to my people. 

When I get some people, that is.

For now, my only assistant is a sassy blonde, who would like his ears scratched, please, as soon as possible.

The excitement of the beginning is all about the clean slate, for me.  As long as the yarn is still in skeins, I've yet to make a single mistake.  The project is still completely perfect, as long as it's only in my head.  I can see how someone with this mindset would eventually find themselves with a house full of yarn, and not a single finished object to show for it.  Not that I would know personally, you understand - this is entirely speculation.  Perfectionist Much?

Fortunately for me (so far), my unbridled lust desire to play with the string always overcomes my need to preserve its unspoilt beauty.  Sooner or later I always cast on.  Binding off, of course, is another matter entirely.  And what goes on in between may or may not be made of magic.  I suppose that's the really driving force for me:  What makes one song a hit and another one elevator music?  We'll never know why some designs are loved and others tank.  And dreaming up the next one is where all the charm lay for me.

One thing is for certain:  My production schedule is really going to take off once these Scottish Terriers learn to knit.

A Thousand Miles to Get to the Beginning

It all started with a fleece.  It always does, I suppose, whether we know it or not.   My pal Carson made me buy this one.  He is the second worst enabler I know.  And I know quite a few string-loving yarn-enablers, as you may imagine.

I bought the fleece at the Black Sheep Gathering.  And it's a Black Sheep.  I named her Caora Dubh (pronounced "Kway-ruh Dew"), which is Scots Gaelic for - you guessed it - Black Sheep.

I had to learn how to scour fleece.  And comb fleece.  And spin about a kabillion miles of it.

And as I neared the end of the project, which was not unlike eating an elephant with a shrimp fork, My Darling Husband accidentally threw away the remainder of Caora Dubh.  You will remember that I DID let him live.  For some reason.

I made 5-ply sportweight yarn.  Quite a bit of it, as it turned out.  Which was exactly enough to make this sweater, with bobbles and cables and collar, oh my.

And that's when the Yarn Gods really blessed me, because as much as I loved Caora Dubh, it turned out my knitting friends did, too.  And one of those knitting friends, the delightful Marilyn King of Black Water Abbey, said she'd really like to see it done up in her dreamy Irish yarn.  And so my fabulous pal Lisa made this gorgeous reproduction, following the pattern that I wrote.  I think Lisa's knitting and Marilyn's yarn are just about the Living End.

And now you can have the pattern for your very own Caora, either Dubh, or some other color.  Click "back to main page" up above, and then choose the patterns tab to download it.  And then you will be - at long last - at the beginning.  

Thanks for sticking with me, my friends.  This was a long journey, even for me.  I'm so happy I took the trip, and I'm even happier you were along for the ride.  

                                            The Beginning


Caora Dubh, in Blackwater Abbey 2-ply sportweight, colorway "Jacob", 1750-2100 yds.  Pattern available on Ravelry.com, and at Black Water Abbey.

 

Plight of the Bumblebee

I lost a ball of yarn.  De Rigueur for a weekday morning at my house.  It was around somewhere, but of course these things have a way of rolling away from us, don't they?  I could have switched to another color for the swatch I was working on, but my inner three-year-old took over and I wanted that ball, not another one.  Knitting is one of the very few places in my life where I want it how I want it, and I very often get it.  So I started lifting things up in the neighborhood of my knitting chair.  Under the quilt? No.  Behind the basket? Nada.  What's that box again? Oh yeah, the yarn for the adult-sized bee sweater.  Heart aches a little, thinking of the now-lost original. 

Oh, the bee sweater.  Everywhere I've been, it's the favorite.  Everybody loves the bees.  Wants bees in an adult size.  Needs a baby version for that newborn they're preparing to meet.  Tells me this is the design that made them try colorwork.  Begs me to buy the sample.  Clearly I have to make an adult version, if I'm ever to be allowed out of the house unmolested.  And so a few weeks ago, I took the original baby version to the yarnmaker's lair.  I struggled and imagined and petted and piled skeins together, getting the combination just right for the adult bee.  It has to be perfect, you understand, because the original is a lot to live up to.

Here's what I chose that day:

I think it's got everything.  The colors, the hand, the fluffiness, the luminous depth that only this particular hand-painter can make.  It's going to be outstanding, and it's going to be soon, because now that my sweaters are gone, I have such a hole in my heart.  Not having my pile of work to physically point to is so bizarrely invalidating.  It's like part of my reality has vaporized.  Like all that knitting never even happened.  The rebirth of the bee sweater in long-requested adult form will be a healing step into the future.  What better way to move on?  I lifted the box up with a new resolve to move this project nearer to the top of the pile.  And what do you think was underneath that box?

Nothing less than the original baby bee.  The real live little sample which should have been with its lost brethren in the stolen sample case, but which wasn't, due to my having taken it to the yarnmaker's lair.  I never put it back in the sample case at all, only thought that I had.  So all the hours and days that I sobbed for its loss, it was right next to my knitting chair, under a box.

Funny the way things are.  Forgetting to put it away saved it for me.  I only had it out of the case because I was listening to the Knitters, who wanted more.  Thank you Knitters, for always telling me what I should do next.  Listening to you saved this wee bit of my work; this small piece of my self.

The Bees' Knees were never lost, except in my imagination.  I have one sample left from my book.  And I am one lucky insect.  Who says bumblebees can't fly?