Labels

Into the Frog Pond

Inspired by a number of conversations with friends about consumption, and clothing, and presentation, and the concept of "enough" when it comes to possessions, and also the fact that I have just had my hands on literally every item I possess because I'm moving—and no force in the universe is as powerful for reassessing your dedication to materialism as the prospect of moving—I'm embarking on a project to catalogue my closet and my craft supplies. And then, I'm going to work on replacing worn-out items with things I've made, which will serve the dual purpose of reducing my supply stash and moving my wardrobe toward garments I like and want to wear.

I'm not as organized as all that makes me sound, though. I'm starting in about nine different places, and working my way toward done from all directions at once. One of those directions is with this wool shrug, which I made from some treasured locally-made yarn I begged shamelessly for on a family vacation years ago. It's never fit me well, I don't love the stark white contrast yarn, the sleeves are too wide to fit under a coat and yet the wool is too thick to wear on days warm enough not to need a coat...all in all, I wore it as a sort of housecoat briefly after I'd finished it, and the rest of the time it's just been following me from house to house, waiting to be loved. (The pattern is fine, I just made it out of the wrong yarn and so it's a bad combination all around.)

I still don't love it. I don't even like it. Fergadssake, I don't even wear it, and I wear some clothes I really don't like, because sometimes what you need is to be covered, not to be delighted by what's covering you.

A grey knitted piece of fabric with a simple pinecone lace design and three small bands of white yarn, two forming a small decorative border at a sleeve cuff and the third as the cast-off edge. It's all piled on the photographer's lap, along with a small pair of silver scissors in a black leather sheath. A cream rug with a large, sparse red linework design fills the background.
Cameo appearance by the office rug, which is much more saturated red in person.
So. It met my scissors.

A close-up of a raised seam on the backside of grey stockinette lace fabric, with a tail partially pulled free of the pair of stitches at the open top of the seam, held between finger and thumb of a white hand.
Past-Sabine was super into doing nice strong seams. Present-Sabine wishes she'd been a little less dedicated to the concept.
And I had a wee conversation with it about how it should really just let its seams be pulled out gracefully, because the more of its material I save now, the greater my options for making it into something that is loved. (Don't take that metaphor too seriously, okay. This is about yarn. Not people. People should not submit to being taken apart for their desired qualities. I, however, am this sweater's god, so I get to remake it. Actually, you know what? I have a lot of ideological problems with this whole concept. Let's get back to the sweater.)

A close-up of the white cast-off edge of a piece of grey knitted lace, showing the cut ends at color changes and the first few stitches unraveled.
I honestly have no idea how I constructed this shrug anymore.
In the process of pulling out the two short seams that formed the sleeves, I freed the ends of the color changes, which I'd trimmed very short after anchoring them, so I pulled some of those out, too. Unzipping yarn is really very satisfying.

A small ball of grey yarn, with a very crimpy tail trailing off across the blue denim background.
Yarn ramen!
And then I found the end of the little knitted-on collar thing, which took some doing, and started pulling the whole thing out, one arm-length at a time. I've seen the crimpy yarn that results from ripping a long-knitted item called "yarn ramen" elsewhere, and I love the image as much as I love the idea of piling it all up in a bowl, but the bowl thing creates maddening tangles later. So instead, I'm winding the yarn into high-tension balls, and I'll reskein it and give it a soak to relax the fibers once I'm done unravelling.

A large rectangular piece of grey knitted lace, with a subtle pinecone pattern and narrow white border strips at the left end, laid on a grey couch. There's a distinct color shift from dark grey in the right half to lighter grey in the left half of the fabric, and a small equilateral triangle of pinkish light on point at the lower left edge of the fabric.
There is only one light-related color shift in this photo, and it's the pinkish triangle at left.
And here's the final reason I really feel I had to rip this sweater out. When I got the original yarn, I immediately took the label off and wound it into a ball...and lost the label. So I had no idea what the yardage was when I started knitting, and then I was like three-quarters through the shrug when I finally admitted I was going to run out. I did manage to contact the shop and get more yarn (and they were delightful, and sent me a few options to choose from, with the understanding that I'd send the unsuitable skeins back with my payment for whatever I kept). I picked something that I thought matched well enough, and told myself the transition line would be totally subtle.

You may be able to see a slight color difference in the photo. Like. Maybe the sweater was dipped in water beforehand? But only half of it.

Nope.

That's just where the yarn switches from skein the first to skein the second.

Rip, rip, rip. I'm not sure what the yarn will become in its next incarnation, but I'll definitely be paying more attention to blending the colors or using them for intentional color blocking.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment