Working With The Muse

Sometimes the Knit Pixies smile upon you. They scatter their happy, magic knitty dust all over and you whip out a pair of socks in two weeks. You bang out a dishcloth in a day. (Pattern for that can be found here, BTW) The needles just seem to click to your inner rhythms and it is effortless.

Knit, knit, knit. You are blessed.

Sometimes, though, the little boogers are vengeful pixies. Maybe they blew a job interview or forgot to pay the cable bill. Whatever the reason, they decide that nothing is going to work for some unlucky knitter and you can only hope that you won't be the one in their sites.

Yesterday, in anticipation of finishing up the dishcloth, I wound up a lovely skein of Perchance To Knit yarn. I've been looking forward to knitting with this. Susie is one of the best dyers of fiber and there is nothing I've ever knit with her stuff that hasn't become a favorite. I figured that this one was going to be a slam dunk. I couldn't miss. Great yarn makes for great knitting.

The sock pattern I had in mind for the yarn ended up being all wrong. And favorite yarn should not be wasted on the wrong pattern. I ripped back and cast on again, this time with a sock pattern that I thought might be more conducive to the soft fibers.

Wrong again. It just wasn't working. I ripped, but still had my sense of humor so that was all right.

Clearly socks were not working here. Maybe it was time for me to be considering something different. I thought to myself, "When in doubt, knit mittens. Mittens always work, right?"

No. No they don't. It still didn't look quite the way I wanted it to look. Sighing mightily, I ripped back again.

The fingerless mitts I cast on next don't even bear mentioning. Let's just leave it at that.

Finally, in desperation, I began flipping through the pattern notebook. I was ready to try anything at that point. Anything! I just wanted to find that "right" combination of knits and purls so as to bring forth that feeling of joy one gets when the yarn marries well.

Turns out the yarn wanted to marry a scarf pattern. I wouldn't have predicted that. But the yarn wants what the yarn wants...

As you can imagine, this took up a good chunk of my day. There were many projects around the house that are getting shuffled over to tomorrow. I have no regrets, though. I am very happy with the current project and nothing the Department of Health might have to say about the situation in my kitchen is going to sway me from that.

Besides, I was kind of multi-tasking. I didn't just get the beginnings of a fabulous scarf out of the time spent today. No, sirree! I also got accessories. All of Susie's yarns come with a delicate crystal stitch marker, a little something extra to make the knitting all that much better. My skein came with two. So along with my new scarf...

I shall also have new earrings.

I don't normally use dangly stitch markers. I have a tendency to knit them firmly into the project, although just how I do this remains a mystery. But I still get rather giddy when I come across a nice marker because there is no law in this world that says I can't add some jewelry findings to them and wear them proudly. I've got all sorts of jewelry made with stitch markers. Getting two in one skein is a bonus, though. Who doesn't love their bling to match their neckwear?

I guess those Knit Pixies know what they are doing after all. Maybe they weren't so much targeting me as they were trying to save me from myself. That's nice of them.

Or maybe I have thwarted them in their plans for knitting disaster and they are, even as I type this, plotting their next move. The scarf may have eluded them, but I'm thinking this may not be the time to go back to that "dishcloth" (with sleeves). You never know...

SA