Pattern Hugger

Business first. Eleanore has won the giveaway for the fingerless gloves. Congratulations! But we’re not done, watch here as plans unfold and take shape.

It’s time to come clean and admit that I am what someone called a pattern hugger. I would give her credit for coining this phrase, but I don’t remember who it was. 60, what do you expect.

So what is a pattern hugger? A knitter who follows a pattern by the letter, and if you’re me you might even get the same yarn and colors.

Now that makes perfect sense to me. I browse for hours on ravelry. Now there’s a place I deposit hundreds of hours of my life. And then from one second to the next, kapow, here is what I want need to knit. I fall in love with the whole thing. Including colors.

But there has been a little shift in wind directions. Take the Jimi Shawlette started and finished recently. Add to the mix a Zuzu’s Petals. Do a mashup and what do you get? A Zuzu and Jimi baby.

It’s wet blocking right now as I write this. There’s still some tweaking to do before it’s perfect and I’m happy. But you see, this pattern hugger has evolved. Only a tiny bit, but  she’s moving along now. This prototype will go in a giveaway box for now.

What precipitated this change? Loving the Zuzu’s Petals pattern but getting a little burnout at the same time. I love how quickly it knits up, and everything that knits up quickly gets my attention lately. So the idea of combining the Jimi and Zuzu was a no-brainer.

Perhaps more inspiration will flow in my future. For now I reminded myself about another Haberdashery cowl I wanted to knit for the holidays. Discipline, marianna.

It’s one of the knits that has a long set-up before the knitting fun begins. You cast on a million stitches and do a band of linen stitch. It takes forever, or so it seems. Once past that chore, you start enjoying the process.

Somehow this was not my day for starting the Haberdashery. I cast on 197 stitches, but on recount noticed I was 10 stitches short. Not a problem, add 10. Once past the band there is a row where you decrease by one to get to 192. 192? That can’t be, that would make cast on 193. Correct. Whatever alternate universe I was inhabiting during cast on was gone. Again, no problem I’ll just decrease by 5 this round and we’re happily continuing. You think?

Now we are introducing the next color and there is a pattern repeat. At the end of that never-ending row I am nowhere near where the pattern tells me I should be. Time to recount my stitches. What? 202, 10 too many. The ten I was short in the other universe showed up here.

Unfortunately, yes, you guessed it, frogging I go. All evening for naught. What is the lesson here and why am I not learning it? Is this the first time I miscounted? Nope. Will it be the last time? Probably not, but I can wish, right?

So let’s take one long last look at what will be no more as soon as this post is published.