rip fest

I've been having this lovely email exchange with my cousin, in which she asked me what I like best to knit. Isn't that an interesting question? One you would think I would have well in hand, and yet it required some serious thought. I've been trying to branch out some, into cabled sweaters, and I've had to knit some mittens out of necessity... but when I stopped to think about it, I remembered that my most favorite things to knit are lace and socks.

Socks, I keep up with. I always have at least one pair going, and they're usually for me. But lace, not so much lately. And I love lace, I really do. I love how you can figure out where you are in the pattern by looking at the knitting, I love that gauge doesn't matter, and I love the way the yarn overs, k2togs and ssks flow and balance each other. There seems to be a rhythm to knitting lace.

So last night I tidied up my knitting area, which meant ripping out a bunch of projects that have been gathering dust because they're just not doing it for me.

I ripped out what was to be an easy and fun shawl in a bamboo yarn, but it proved to be just way too boring to knit. I like the idea of feather and fan, but I can hardly ever bring myself to knit all those rows, back and forth, back and forth, and so little going on. And I ripped out that cabled cardigan I started some weeks back, partly because it was turning out to be too small for me, and partly because I have decided to face facts and accept that I just don't like knitting cables very much. They make my joints hurt, and they're so fiddly and time-consuming. And there was a pair of mittens that wasn't working out for me, so they got put away...

And I cast on this shawl in this yarn, and I'm enjoying myself very much.