Fledgling Spinner

My own personal knitting evolution was slow…..my first piece was a raglan sleeve sweater that was all stripes and pieces stolen from my mom’s wool stash. Most lacked labels and was of different yarn weights…..I remember one pink stripe on the sleeves kind of buckled and bubbled cause it was a heavier, bulky weight yarn. I was also beginner enough to do the back collar on the back piece and then seam it to the front later…..but we won’t talk about that.

Following nearly a decade of knitting, I was gifted some wools which ran above the general acrylic found in superstores or craft chain stores. I couldn’t put my finger on why I loved them so much until a few more projects with wool or “higher end” stuff. Gone was the squeaky pull of acrylic on my needles…especially in the hot summer when sweaty palms made tension problems worse. More shapely were the sweaters in Knitpicks Peruvian wool offerings when compared to the limp body of the Simply Soft Sweater done a year earlier.

Needle evolution was likewise a trip from ignorance to bliss when the colder Boye metal made way for the swishy softness of Knitpicks wood or bamboo (although bamboo and I don’t get along with sock wools as my hot little hands seem to make them bend too much for my liking).

I know there are die-hard fans of acrylic and metal needles. Half of the stash box still houses full balls of Red Heart and the needle wrap is stuffed with metal needles, perfect for those times when a project calls for a size I lack. But I don’t love working with them. I am spoiled. I can see the merits, but my heart now belongs to other materials. I am sorry acrylic and metal, Boye and Carron, staple products of by-gone eras.

That being said, should I purge the remainder? Or hold on to the pieces of my knitting past in case I need them?

Spring cleaning is a quaint notion – I am here to advocate Fall Finishing…mostly for myself. I know it is okay – even encouraged – to have more than one WIP, but that is only acceptable if you have intentions and a finish line in sight. See, there is this really horrible thing that haunts my knitting stash – the Infamous Green Sweater.

This sweater was borne of a desire to have a cable knit sweater, but before I knew about cool yarns and patterns and sleeve styles. (And also those websites and places to find the same) I kinda made it up as I went and knit it from a hideous acrylic and tried to do it as a raglan. Green sweater has tried on many sleeve styles, and none of them fit quite right. When the sleeves have a cable pattern like the ones on the body, they look like military or armored scales. Green sweater wants to be a cable knit with a lovely draped cowl neck like in one episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But I am sure I haven’t decreased properly….and it won’t work with the sleeves…..

Green sweater might live in the wool box forever unless I make a solid effort to finish all the other projects that I have started in and around it. I will also spin more alpaca.