Oh My Goodness. Welcome! Thanks for popping over!

Here, have a coffee and sit a bit as I have some things to tell ya!

First, let’s talk about this gorgeous sweater.

    1. No, it’s not my design. It’s Alicia Plummer’s Campside Cardi. This pattern was a pure joy to knit. Took me a couple weeks. Fairly straight-forward. Easy to memorize sections. Not too boring. Nothing complex. Really, my type of pattern.
    2. I used exactly 3 skeins of my Alpaca Silk Dk yarn in colorway: Pewter. Pewter is a warm toffee gray. Perfect for those of us with golden, warm skin. I love knitting sweaters in neutrals because they just go with everything, ya know? I made size 33 and it has a bit of negative ease. Meaning, it’s too small on purpose.
    3. It was a hilarious and cute rumply mess before blocking. But blocking made it grow tremendously, lay smooth and look professional. This is why I love natural fibers.

campside cardi before blocking

Look how that smoothed out and grew!
size-large

Campside Cardi Knitted Pattern in expression fiber arts Pewter Alpaca Silk Dk Yarn

Campside Cardi Knitted Pattern in expression fiber arts Pewter Alpaca Silk Dk Yarn

I admit, this was my first sweater with this yarn base. It’s so soooooffftttt. You can be sure I’ll be wearing this all fall and winter!

It never really gets cold enough here in Charlotte for a coat, but sweaters, YES.

And now for the less than fabulous news… After I finished this sweater, I went into full-on frenzy mode. I needed another project immediately. I had so enjoyed making this that I wanted to cast on another sweater asap.

I downloaded a pattern. It was too complex for my tastes. Downloaded another. Didn’t have the yarn. Decided to improvise and use Sport weight yarn held double to try and make a Dk weight. (It doesn’t – it’s thicker.) So here I was with double-stranded, too-thick yarn on thin needles and the pattern called for these crazy cables right away.

Andd…. my hands started to yell at me immediately.

“Naw, I’ll be fine! I’ll go slow,” I said.

One row in, I ripped it out and decided not to work the cables. I’d do stockinette instead.

But the yarn was still too thick for the needles and I was in a weird frenzy rush to produce.  I really get a kick out of finishing things but when it comes to knitting, that’s not usually the point. The point is to knit.

I managed to finished the shoulders and separate for the sleeves… and then. OUCH. My arms started screaming at me to stop. Icy hot pain was shooting all up and down my hands and arms.

And so here I sit… unable to knit. In truth, it’s hurting to type, but I’m going slowly and wearing wrist braces.

And this has happened more times than I can count. Just with knitting. And only with certain knitting. Usually if the yarn is too tight on the needles, causing me to shove and shove.

Or if the yarn is super non-stretchy. Cotton yarn is particularly offensive to my hands.

After years of this happening over and over, I have finally realized something (I think.)

My knitting method (which is continental) might be good for sprint knitting. Small bits. Here and there. It’s speedy. But not so good for long-term, marathon knitting. I could be wrong. Please tell me I’m wrong.

So here are my questions:

  1. What knitting method do you use and have you ever experienced pain from it?
  2. If you haven’t experienced pain, then YAY! Describe what you do so we can all copy.

Hurrah! I am thinking of trying flicking (yes, it’s a method!) once my hands have sufficiently rested. My friend Gemma knits that way and loves it.

And I need to learn to sloooowwww downnnn in general. Knitting is not a race. Knitting is not about production. It’s about… knitting.

As my friend, Amy, put it last Saturday at brunch, “Knitting is supposed to be slow.”

Ahhhh. Yes.

Here’s to slowness. And patience. And days of rest spent reading books since that requires very little hand movement. 😀

We’ll chat soon.

Chandi

P.S. I want to apologize for not blogging in ages. AGESSSS. Let me tell you why. My blog has been wack. I had somebody “fix” it up years ago and they didn’t do a great job. The pages took forever to load, the styling was off. It would just disappear on random days. My hosting and security companies kept asking for more and more and more thousands of dollars each year to maintain it. And still, I would wake up on many days to find the entire blog either missing or files gone, etc.

And then I hired Robin at Codeable, who is even NOW working on the blog and has fixed so many issues, moved me to a much better, safer and vastly-cheaper hosting and security solution. The stress that has lifted off of me is incredible. I love it when people know what they are doing. So expect more blogging from me! (Thank you, Robin!)