Flying Saucers Improve Outlook

My adventures still find me deep in the wilds of the land of Intarsia.  The natives are not friendly, but your advice for dealing with them, Gentle Readers, has been spot-on.  Far and away, the best suggestion for dealing with my tangling dangling various yarn supplies has been simply to cut them short, and let them hang.

Since these little bobbin thingys that I ordered arrived, though, I thought I'd take them out for a spin, so to speak.

Here are the pros and cons of the flying saucers, in case anybody wonders:

Bobbin Advantages:
                
            Tangling is truly minimized.

            You can store a much bigger whack of yarn on a bobbin than you could stand to have hanging loose, so you are saved from needing to make extra joins.

            Yarn on bobbins is protected from dirt, wear and tear.
            
            Yarn can be advanced from bobbin in any increment/length.  With old-school bobbins, you could only advance the yarn "per wrap", if you get my meaning.  With these, you pull out exactly the amount you want.

            The smallest size is very lightweight, and does not alter knitting tension (I haven't tried the mediums, but the large ones are heavy).

            They don't cost a lot, so you can buy enough for a real Intarsia-Palooza

            They snap together for storage, so once you survive complete your project, you'll be able to find them again one day, all hanging out companionably.

Bobbin Shortcomings:

            They make a soft little noise, knocking against one another as you work.  Now that I think of it, some people might like this and consider it an advantage.  A person as tightly wound as I am, however, finds it annoying.

            While one small bobbin doesn't weigh enough to jack up your knitting tension, I suspect that 10 or more at a time might do so.

            Each bobbin swings like a pendulum from the work, so they actually tangle around each other more than free-hanging strands would.  They untwist more easily, so there it is.

In all, I'm finding that the flying saucers have a place in my knitting, and I'm glad I got some to play with. 

My epic saga with Intarsia is teaching me some really interesting things about myself.  Notably, that my OCD is tolerates the tangling of yarn much less well than I thought.  I'm a knitter who can't let a yarn tail hang any longer than it takes to make enough knitting to weave it into, so this should not have been the surprise it was.  Nonetheless, I am finding that letting those strands dangle is quite a struggle, even though I know it's faster overall to wait a while before dealing with them.  For those who HAVE coping skills, let me try to describe the sensation this knitting gives me:

It's like hearing all but the final chord of the song. 

It's like wearing your shoes on the wrong feet.

It's the broken red crayon in your perfect new box of 64.

First World problem, to be sure.  But I'm going to be glad when I'm done learning what I'm supposed to learn from this quest.  Funny the way things are:  I became a knitting "professional" so that I could spend my time doing what I love most.  And one of the first things I learned is that when you knit for a living, you don't get to do ONLY the types of knitting you like the best.  You know: that's why they call it "Work", rather than "Nirvana".  Duh.  Lucky me though - It's still knitting after all.


 

Intarsia Gives Me A Toothache

I have lots of favorite knitting styles.  Intarsia is not one of them.  The items made using intarsia are not (usually) my cup of tea.  The techniques required to make intarsia are counter-intuitive to me.  And worst of all, the snarled spaghetti of the many separate yarn sources required to work intarsia are more than I can reasonably handle.  I have to limit myself to unsnarling them only when I am no longer able to advance the working strands properly, or I would just sit around untangling, without ever knitting a stitch.  Phillip's observation:  "Is it supposed to look like that?"  Yes.  "Woah.  You don't do "Hot Mess" very well.  That must be driving you bat-shit."  Dude knows me well.

BUT, all of that whinging aside, I am the one who cleverly agreed to write a book containing intarsia as a colorwork technique.  I am also the one who suggested that I design some projects with it, in order to demonstrate the technique.  So there it is.  What's wanted here is less sniveling, and more knitting.

To that end, I am now embracing my inner intars-er, and pouring all the love and light I can find into this piece of work.  I created a motif I love, in a design that tickles me, and is something I have never made before.  Ergo, I am a happy designer.  As a knitter, though, I'm just pushing through the wall.  And yes, I have heard of bobbins, whose arrival in the mail I am eagerly awaiting.  And I tried "butterflies", but it ended badly.  Any other suggestions are welcome, however.  Turning to you, Gentle Readers, has never failed me yet, so lay the know-how on me if you will.

If anybody needs me, I'll be over here; sitting under the Hot Mess.

Soldiering On

Here are the skeins for my sweater du jour, which was due last week.  Aren't they beautiful?  I love how full of promise they seem, reporting for duty like that.  I took this picture before starting the sweater, but I think I'll actually be finishing it today.  Then I'll write its pattern, and finish up the last of the work that was due on the first of this month.  It's my first missed deadline, and I feel pretty disappointed about it.  On the positive side, I'm really only about a week behind, so it could have been worse.

July always hits me like a ton of bricks - I have no idea where the first part of summer went.  It's weird at this latitude:  we don't have any summer weather until vacation is half over, so it kind of sneaks up on us.  But the weather is finally beautiful, and we are free to go outside, and stretch our leaves to the sun.  I'm thinking of knitting outside for a while, though what I really feel like doing is spinning.  Maybe I'll offer that to myself as a reward for finishing the missed deadline stuff.

Enjoy your weekend, Gentle Readers.  See you on the other side.