The sweater grows

I finished the back of the Ropes-and-Picots cardigan yesterday afternoon. I'm contemplating going ahead and blocking it to size right now - that way I can photograph it in an un-curled-up state, and also, since my blocking squares don't cover that much square footage, it will be done by the time I have the fronts, and later, the sleeves, to block.

It has sort of an odd shape - you bind off the shoulders BEFORE the neckline, and do an 1 1/2" "extension" for the back neck beyond the shoulders. This is because the sleeves have a funny little tab (the rope pattern is carried up along it) that extends up to the neckline.

I also cast on for the left front. This sweater requires some kind of provisional cast-on, because you knit the first few rows of a lighter weight yarn (to form the hem turn-up) and then you do a picot row in the sweater yarn, then knit a few more rows, then you unpick the provisional cast-on and knit the hem to the body of the sweater. (I suppose a person could just knit the hem the regular way and then sew it up after the sweater was done, but that would be less flexible and would be a clunkier solution).

I used the "invisible provisional" cast on for the first time ever on the sweater back. The little diagram in the "Glossary" of the issue of Interweave that the pattern was in - so I referred to the most recent SnB book ("Superstar Knitting" or somesuch).

I still had a hard time with it, wound up having to try four or five different times to get it to work.

This time, I got it on the first try. It's still not EASY for me, not in the way that the traditional old long-tail cast on I use for most things is easy for me, but it was easier. And it looked a lot better than the first version did.

That's one of the things I like about knitting. You can learn the basics comparatively quickly, and can make good and beautiful and useful things just using those basics...but there are always new techniques you can learn and "plug in" different places. Or there are new techniques that are necessary for doing something at the "next level."

Actually, one of the things I like about knitting is that it combines the familiar with the novel. Once you've mastered the knit and the purl, the yarn over and the various decreases (at the very least - a left-leaning and a right-leaning, so you can do things like decrease for the shoulders on a raglan sweater and have it look symmetrical), you can make a lot of things. (You can even make lace, if you know yarn overs and decreases...even though a lot of knitters never do get heavily into lace). But there are more things you can learn...cabling techniques, and twisted stitches, and different types of cast-ons and bind-offs, and things like intarsia and entrelac and two-handed, two-color knitting techniques.

And you can learn as much or as little of those as you want. I guess of late I've been somewhat of an "as-needed" learner of techniques. I've never done entrelac, for example, because I've not yet seen a pattern that was sufficiently compelling to me to make it for me to want to learn. (But I have every confidence that I COULD, if I wanted to). I learned to do intarsia and all that involved for a big Mags Kandis shawl that I really loved and wanted. I did learn from that project that I don't LOVE doing intarsia, and for me to do it again, it would have to be an extremely compelling project.

I can't remember when I first knit something with lace - it was probably socks, I'd guess - but I will say I found lace interesting and rewarding to do, and I liked the look of the finished projects - so I still do lace projects when I find one I like. Same with cables. (Cables are one of those things that look far more complicated than they are to do, or at least I think so).

And yet, all of those fancy techniques still use, and still build on, the basics: the knit stitch. The purl stitch. Yarn-overs (especially in lace). Decreases. You're constantly using and refining that knowledge and skill.

(I suppose, in a way, it's like playing an instrument: while I'm wrestling with being able to do baroque "ornaments" on a Bach piece, I still follow the same basic rules of fingering and legato and all that that I learned in the early pieces).

Also, with knitting, you have so many yarns you can choose from. (That's another of my favorite parts). Not only different colors, but different fibers or fiber combinations. And different types of spin - worsted or woollen, thick-and-thin, plied or cabled. And every different yarn behaves a little differently. Often times I choose to make a certain project partly because I want to use a certain yarn for it. (We all have favorites we return to, but there are also so many new and different yarns out there...) There are the big commercial producers that make stuff like Cascade 220, which you can find lots of places...and then small artisan dyers or spinners who may only sell their yarn through their own catalog or website.

(One of the things that I will say makes me sad - so many of us live in towns without a yarn shop. There's stuff available at the big-box stores, and some of it is nice, and all of it serves some purpose (if you're making laprobes for people in a nursing home, where you know they'll be thrown in a washer of hot water and a dryer on high, you will want to use a 100% acrylic, as much as you might not want that for a sweater for yourself). But the big-box stores don't give the full diversity of yarn. I don't think I'd have continued as a knitter if I only had access to the sort of yarn that Wal-Mart or Hobby Lobby carries...but thank goodness, I get catalogs from KnitPicks and Patternworks and I know all kinds of great websites to order from...and when I travel, I look for "real" yarn shops to go to.)