In which I take a trip to the frog pond

By Meg Dedolph

It’s been an exciting week in the mental landscape of my knitting brain.

We went to Lansing, Mich., recently, to play for a contra dance, and of course, there was car knitting. I’m getting a little tired of the relentless 16-sock parade passing through my hands (seriously, how is it that I am finishing socks, yet no empty needles appear? I know I’m not throwing them away afterwards.)

Anyway, I pulled out a cabled scarf that I had put down for some reason, and happily knit on it for a very long time, all the way to the gig and part of the way home. It was so much fun - I loved seeing how the cables crossed and uncrossed, traveling across the scarf. The yarn is a little tweedy and it was delightful to watch the flecks of color appear.

It got me to thinking, I had also cast on a cabled sweater in a wooly blue yarn from the Hudson Valley in New York, and that sweater was stagnant. It was sitting in a bag in my living room, giving me feelings of guilt and embarrassment every time I looked at the bag.

So I spent some time thinking about why one project was wonderful and joyful and the other one was something I had not knit a stitch on in months. 

I texted with a friend about it and as I typed, I realized what was going on.

I didn’t want this blue cabled sweater. I didn’t like the way the yarn looked when I knit cables with it. I like plump round yarns for cabling, (like the Misha and Puff I'm making this Badger Creek mitten from) and this is more of a two-ply handspun kind of yarn.

Instead, I scrolled through my Ravelry queue  and found a plain stockinette sweater, knit in pieces and seamed, kind of oversized and cuddly - exactly the kind of sweater I see myself wearing as I walk on a Pacific Coast beach on an overcast day, looking at the waves and listening to the gulls.

The way forward was clear. The yarn is great. It was just turning into the wrong sweater. (I still want to make that cabled sweater; don’t get me wrong. Now I’m just looking for the right yarn to do it in.)

I frogged half a sleeve and six inches of cabled knitting, started a sweater sleeve (a sleeve can be a swatch, right?) and I’m loving it.

Now I just have to figure out how to get to the Oregon Coast.

When do you let go of ideas?