Tuesday 15 September 2015

Ravelry and the Chunky Two Colour Cowl

If I've established one thing today it's that I can't successfully navigate the many twists, turns, dead ends and other complications which make up the maze of the ravelry designer's account. I somehow ended up with two accounts. I don't know how, but I'm willing to accept it was probably an error on my part. My pattern wasn't connected to either of them. Then it became connected and a period of comparative peace ensued. Then it wasn't again and havoc ensued. By the time I'd answered a lot of questions from ravellers kindly trying to help me, and realised how little I could picture the shape of the site, a migraine was hovering. (Give me a flowchart or a site map or something! Just something so i can see how all the pages are connected for myself. Otherwise it's like doing a jigsaw without the picture on the lid.)

And it's like tatting: everything's fine while you're doing okay but, the minute you go wrong, there's no easy route back. Or no route at all. I was clicking on the same button at different times and being taken to different pages; how can that be? How can the site one time offer me a choice of my shop account or my designer account and then, another time, offer me my shop account or a different designer account. How?

Are you still there? Okay, this is the pattern that was on ravelry. I posted it saying it was free but if anyone liked it and wanted to donate a small amount to my late niece's fundraising project for cancer charities, The Knock On Effect, that would be fab. That still stands.

I'll upload it here as soon as I've had my lie down in a darkened room. And then another simple one straight after, just because I said I would.







Saturday 5 September 2015

I've started, so I'll finish...

Or maybe I won't.

I've had a vintage jumper on the needles for quite some time. Maybe a couple of years. But the fact I was knitting it so slowly - even by my standards, which often see upstart new projects leapfrog with gusto over back burner knitting - was a clue that I wasn't fully committed to it. I liked the wool (Cygnet Truly Wool Rich 4 ply - perfect for vintage knits); I liked some aspects of the pattern; I liked the whole idea of knitting something from the very old knitting book that Mike kindly presented me with one recentish Christmas.  But long hours spent knitting into the back of every single stitch didn't endear me to it.

So I looked again at the completed back and realised it was probably time to call it quits. I could upravel the yarn. I could knit something I liked more. (I mean, it had puff sleeves - what was I thinking?) I could avoid the torture of knitting into the backs of thousands more stitches. And then this morning, I looked at some other vintage patterns and its fate was sealed.

Life's too short to finish books you're not enjoying reading or make jumpers you're not enjoying knitting!