SHknit

I get such a kick out of the site, You Knit What?? Seriously...What the hell where you thinking?. I would post a pic from there, but the designs they find are so fugly that it would just detract too much from our pretty little site for me to bear! Go see what I mean...Meanwhile...

Both of us Stinkmums knit, but we're a pretty picky duo. As You Knit What clearly illustrates, there is a serious lack of good knit design patterns available. I actually feel the urge to dry heave when I'm flipping through patterns at the LYS. So much of it is of this 30 year outdated, ragg wool, itchy, crunchy, live on a commune with no running water and wearing leaves for maxipads vein. Or else it's wa-a-a-y gimmicky. Just who the hell wants to wear this shit that's on the same level as sweatshirts printed with kittens or Scottish Terriers? I can't think about it anymore, I can feel the vomit rising in my throat...

I have two WIPs right now that are taking very long to complete due to my attention deficit...a Clapotis and a shrug. I haven't had the time nor the energy to finish either one, and whenever I do manage to sit down to knit, one or both of the StinkPuppies or Mr. BigStink come running to interrupt me...they have serious serious cases of knittus-interuptus...but ala Willie Nelson, the WIPs? they are always on my mind.

The shrug is cute, but...it's a shrug...why am I even bothering? Plus, I'm getting the feeling it won't be big enough for my big girl turkey drumstick forearms...it's this one on the right from Suss Designs, and I was totally suckered in by the picture...it looked so cute and it's styled so well. Also, my yarn choice isn't so thrilling to me...the color...the yarn...the way it feels to knit with 9's to obtain gauge...I'm too fucking finicky about the esthetics of the process to see the forest for the trees. Total sucker...big thought balloon over my head with a picture of a donkey's ass in it.

Waiting in the wings is this sweater pattern also from Suss: I haven't picked out the yarn for it yet because I know it will be a long project and will require a lot of yarn to complete. I'm actually not looking forward to it because I tend to get mired down by texture, color, and weight so much that I end up never being satisfied and forever returning yarn like a schizo. The same goes for the Clapotis...not happy with the yarn choice, but forced myself to keep going to overcome my fickleness and now it's too late. I'm too far in to abandon it, thus, onward I must go. I can see that thing's going to felt up and pill like crazy too.

The reason I knit at all is kind of hard to sum up, but it has something to do with the zen-like state I achieve when it's all just flowing off the needles, combined with the thought processes involved...the math, the feeling of building something up from string, creating something...and in the end, if it comes out alright...the admiring of the work and effort with a bit of slap-myself-on-the-back satisfaction, that comes only from creativity for me...It fulfills my creative urges on every level, I guess.

Anyway, getting back to it, due to this continual lack of satisfaction of patterns and yarn selection, I must say that I have knitted very few items to completion. Spinning and dyeing doesn't speak to me, and I'm not experienced enough of a knitter to do my own patterns to date, but one day maybe I will stop bitching and get to it!