More Knitting Roadblocks - And Their Paths Forward
We're anything if not flexible and resilient here at Oogyknitter!! When faced with knitting roadblocks, we (eventually, anyway) power through them!
Roadblock #1: I heard back from the Knit Picks folks, and was informed that both Sky and Black have been discontinued for Brava Sport (I need one skein of each to complete the CWA). (I don't know how you discontinue Black of anything, unless it's that unpopular and also difficult to procure. This can't bode well for the Brava Sport line, though - so get yours while you can, as needed!)
The Path Forward: I'm going to have to fudge this a bit, but I think I can make this work. I ordered a skein of Brava Worsted in Sky - they've got to be at least similar, right? And then I figured - Black can't be THAT hard to match(ish), surely I have something in the stash that might be a rough approximation. You've seen this afghan, it should be fairly easy to sneak these in. I'll let you know soon - production must continue as soon as the Sky arrives!
Roadblock #2: I was very excited to see that January Gift was posted by Kelbourne Knits yesterday, but was dismayed to see that they have decided to charge for these patterns. I'm OK with that - designers should be compensated fairly for their work, and I shouldn't expect them to give their efforts away. But - I thought that Kelbourne was doing this to drive customers to purchase their yarns. Maybe that wasn't happening, and everyone was using their own stash, like I was doing! Anyway, it's a lovely pattern - but I would rather not spend $60 on this whole thing.
The Path Forward: Neuro and I are going to roughly approximate each month's Gift pattern, using stash yarn whenever possible (yes, this is in addition to the BadAss Cowl initiative - but we can't just knit cowls (and afghans!) all year!). So our January Gift will be a stranded hat. Neuro is going to design and make a fabulous stranded tam (I think she's already designed it, at least in her head!), and I'm going to take another pass at her Fire Festival Hat. (You might recall that, almost exactly a year ago, I cast one on and then got the damn thing twisted and threw it in the pile in frustration. It's a gorgeous pattern, I'm just incapable of managing a fingering weight cast-on in the round!) There are no other rules, except for the guideline that we should have these pretty well wrapped up before February Gift is revealed next month!
Roadblock #3: As I expected, I can't count. I spent most of my yarn time yesterday wrangling with counting, arithmetic, and pattern notes for the Exploding Unicorn. I crocheted the first 1.25 rows of the border twice before ripping them both out. Most of my problem was that I hadn't read the pattern thoroughly.
The Path Forward: This isn't rocket science. Start over, write it all down, and do it again!!
Onward!!
Roadblock #1: I heard back from the Knit Picks folks, and was informed that both Sky and Black have been discontinued for Brava Sport (I need one skein of each to complete the CWA). (I don't know how you discontinue Black of anything, unless it's that unpopular and also difficult to procure. This can't bode well for the Brava Sport line, though - so get yours while you can, as needed!)
The Path Forward: I'm going to have to fudge this a bit, but I think I can make this work. I ordered a skein of Brava Worsted in Sky - they've got to be at least similar, right? And then I figured - Black can't be THAT hard to match(ish), surely I have something in the stash that might be a rough approximation. You've seen this afghan, it should be fairly easy to sneak these in. I'll let you know soon - production must continue as soon as the Sky arrives!
Roadblock #2: I was very excited to see that January Gift was posted by Kelbourne Knits yesterday, but was dismayed to see that they have decided to charge for these patterns. I'm OK with that - designers should be compensated fairly for their work, and I shouldn't expect them to give their efforts away. But - I thought that Kelbourne was doing this to drive customers to purchase their yarns. Maybe that wasn't happening, and everyone was using their own stash, like I was doing! Anyway, it's a lovely pattern - but I would rather not spend $60 on this whole thing.
The Path Forward: Neuro and I are going to roughly approximate each month's Gift pattern, using stash yarn whenever possible (yes, this is in addition to the BadAss Cowl initiative - but we can't just knit cowls (and afghans!) all year!). So our January Gift will be a stranded hat. Neuro is going to design and make a fabulous stranded tam (I think she's already designed it, at least in her head!), and I'm going to take another pass at her Fire Festival Hat. (You might recall that, almost exactly a year ago, I cast one on and then got the damn thing twisted and threw it in the pile in frustration. It's a gorgeous pattern, I'm just incapable of managing a fingering weight cast-on in the round!) There are no other rules, except for the guideline that we should have these pretty well wrapped up before February Gift is revealed next month!
Roadblock #3: As I expected, I can't count. I spent most of my yarn time yesterday wrangling with counting, arithmetic, and pattern notes for the Exploding Unicorn. I crocheted the first 1.25 rows of the border twice before ripping them both out. Most of my problem was that I hadn't read the pattern thoroughly.
The Path Forward: This isn't rocket science. Start over, write it all down, and do it again!!
Onward!!
Comments
I'm looking forward to our little hat projects :)