Oops, I Did It Again

Yesterday, I cast-on for a new sweater just for me.

I was NOT supposed to do that.

I have more than enough knitting for now with a magazine project on the needles that is due in early February. I have a couple of sweaters (I wish to blog about) that need finishing. Some pattern writing and formatting are weighing on me as well.

Casting-on for a new sweater was an easy trap for me to fall into...

First I saw this blog post by Sally Rainey in praise of both the pattern and the yarn. The pattern was designed by Julie Hoover (my newest favorite designer). After I read the post, I bought Julie's Leigh pattern and her Hart pattern as well. (Check them out if you have a minute. Just. Beautiful.)

And the yarn! Sally used the same yarn Julie wrote the pattern for, and it is one that I enjoyed swatching with at a "Shibui Yarn Tasting Party" at Gosh Yarn It! last year. Shibui Pebble [48% recycled silk, 36% merino and %16 cashmere] is a marvelously tweedy, light as air, lace-weight yarn that is held double when knitting Leigh. I bought eight skeins of it in the 'ash' coloway during the Gosh Yarn It! year-end sale (the day after I bought the patterns).

I had the yarn. I had the pattern. Yesterday, I swatched and cast-on for Leigh, and I knit a good inch or two.

I was NOT supposed to do that.

At some point during one of my daughter's visits over the holidays, we were in a car together and talking about knitting. (I can't remember why we were in the car, or why we were talking about knitting.) I said to my daughter, "I think I have reached a point where all of my future knitting will be my own designs... even sweaters. I don't think I will ever use any other designer's patterns again." 

In Julie Hoover's recent blog post she says she was obsessed with Pebble in 2014 when she wrote several patterns for it. She says she is still obsessed, and she was about to cast-on for a Cohle (also beautiful) as part of a KAL she is hosting. She referred to the project as her "pleasure knitting". Note: It is something she will enjoy knitting, but it is her own pattern.

Sadly for me, I must stop and think about NOT making this Leigh. I would enjoy the experience of knitting one of Julie's designs, but as a designer myself, I know that I really could make a sweater of my own design using the Pebble.

I keep thinking about what my daughter said to me in that car after I said what I said. She said, "Those are fight'n words!"

I guess I will be frogging that little bit of Leigh. It has been a fight for me to decide that.

And I thought that she was just joking!