Knitting Funk and Needing Feedback

Maelstrom Border with Beads
Originally uploaded by sunasak

Well, crap, nothing is going right, at least in my warped perception of my knitting progress these days. I feel like I wasted the weekend and am not happy with my progress on the Maelstrom border.

So, look at how it looked when I was finished with one repeat. I admit that it looks marginally better now that I have four, but I have stopped working on it. I am very worried that I have too many beads in there. I think I may decide to rip out what I have done and try again, omitting the second row of beads on the edge. I think they make the shawl too heavy and “crunchy.” I like the little clusters in the center and the row of beads along the edge of the main part. And I think the outer row MIGHT be better with just a bead at the top of every point. I would love some feedback on this. What do you think? I was really hoping I’d see Jody when she was here so I could ask her, too, but so far, that hasn’t happened (no doubt she is hanging with her family).

Besides not liking how it is coming out, I had trouble getting the beads where I wanted them in the first place, and had to start again a couple of times. And I would lose count in the border, because the rows are too short to use tape to mark them, and my really nice electronic row counter has broken. I guess I will look for my “kacha kacha” old one and that will relieve me of the frustration of using pencil marks. Wow, I sound crochety.

And furthermore, even easy things I am working on are bugging me. I am taking a break from Itchy Shalom because it itches and is hot. Soon as it cools off, I will get back to that one and the alpaca sweater from this spring (while it is not cool, at least it rained last night). I started the Wrap Me Up shawl that I am supposed to be doing a Knitalong of, only I started and didn’t tell anyone. I am doing it because I need something easy that isn’t as fussy as all the beads, to rest my hands and eyes. So, I manage to read the instructions wrong multiple times, and had the first squares backward, so I had to re-do them. Then I attached the second unit at the wrong place. Yadda yadda. At one point, I was doing linen stitch wrong. I mean, come on, I have made entire garments using that, and designed a scarf in that stitch! I must say, it’s pretty in its Noro glory. Photo next time!

I must just be in a knitting funk. Shoot, you know it’s bad when your favorite female political personage Schaeffer yarn is the one named for your least favorite candidate, like, ever, by golly. I am just not in the mood for bright, shiny colors at the moment.

I can’t even get happy about my darned socks (which, in fact, are not darned at all, since they aren’t done!). It has taken me way longer than I figured it would to get the toes done (thanks to not much out-of-the-house knitting time). I think, though, that I may finish during Beccano’s guitar lesson today. These socks seem to have taken forever, but I know it’s just because I have been focused on other projects all this time. I have purposely chosen a simple pattern in a very cheerful yarn for the next pair—it’s Lang Jawoll Aktion in a very happy self-striping color with a lot of blue in it. And it comes with reinforcing yarn for the heels and toes! I will make something more complex after that.

I hope tomorrow at the yarn shop I will get more inspired. I will have a shopping trip before that, so I should feel good.

Let me know if you think all the beads on the shawl look good, or if you think they are just too much. Yes, you, non-commenters. Please chime in if you can!