Knitting Perseverance

Any time I’m struggling with knitting something, and I think of giving up, I remember what Vince said to me back in 2005 or 2006. I was trying to learn to knit socks. I had not knitted in 20 or more years. I didn’t know how to fix a dropped stitch or how to rip back and pick up stitches. After probably dozens of attempts, I got as far as the heel and must have messed up five or six times, having to rip all the way back to the cast on each time. One night, Vince lovingly patted me on the arm and said “Why don’t you give up?” Oh . . that was 14 or 15 years ago and he hadn’t yet figured out that “give up” was not something I do. I’m very glad I didn’t give up on sock knitting. That is still one of my favorite things to knit.

The photos in this post are awful. I know it. Most were taken when I was tired and frustrated and too lazy to even get up out of my chair. Bad blogger!

Attempt #2:

This is my second attempt at this project. I don’t think I took a photo of the first attempt. I had started out using a lighter solid – almost white but barely green yarn and realized it would blend with this mottled green yarn when they were knitted next to each other.

I ripped all the way back and started using this orange and mottled yarn. After about 6 or 7 inches into the project, I decided I didn’t really like the mottled yarn so I ripped it all out and started again.

Attempt #3:

Then I went back to the light solid green and a more olive green.

I knitted about 3″ of that and decided the light was just too light for those two darker colors and ripped that all out.

Attempt #4:

By now, I had probably 12 or 14 skeins of yarn out trying to decide what to use. I really wanted to use that orange. I piled them all onto the floor and asked Vince . . Pick three colors . . they don’t have to go together just pick three you like together.

He chose these three. OK. I like those.

• Color #1 – orange
• Color #2 – green
• Color #3 – blue

I started knitting the orange and green together and it was boring. I didn’t like it at all.

At that point, I decided to give up on using the orange for this project.

Attempt #5:

Here’s where I am now.

It’s a bad, late night, horrible lighting photo. The light blue skein is really light blue and there’s good contrast between it and the dark blue. It’s a good while before I get to needing that third color and it could change between now and then. I’m even thinking pink or lavender.

I like the darker blue, greenish yellow together so I’ll keep knitting that and decide for sure on a third color when I get to that point. Any other colors you think would look good with these two?

Five attempts. I should probably have taken Vince’s 15 year old advice and given up but I really love this pattern and I think once you see it done, you’ll understand why I tried over and over to get colors I liked.

Plus . . it’s a stash project. Everything I’ve tried has come from the stash. That’s a good thing!