15 April 2008

Watch it Unravel

There once was a girl named Marissa who had big dreams for designing a capelet with her coveted alpaca yarn. She sketched it out, planned, swatched, crossed her fingers twice, but it did not work. And do you know what? She really didn't care that much that her design failed!

Capelet

So here is the capelet. It looks adorable on this chair, but not on me. I could have tried harder to figure it out better, but there is a
design that I'd much rather spend the time and effort knitting, that a professional created. I love figuring things out nyself, but there is a time and a place. Sometimes, it's best to let the expert do it, especially for my yarn spinning needs and dental surgery.

Not working

Now, if the yarn was not so special to me, and harder to knit up, I would be much more upset. Sometimes you have to start over to do something well. It is oddly satisfying to pull on yarn and watch it unravel. (Que Weezer's Sweater Song) Other times, you can pawn it off as a gift and act gracious. (wink)

I'm more willing to take risks and fail with my knitting. Perhaps that is because I don't feel it reflects the fragile inner part of my ego.

Pretty, just not on

I'm much more scared to fail when it comes to other things (like art), but I'm slowly getting over that. Under this tough exterior, I have a pretty sensitive heart. Time to toughen that up.

On that note, I'll leave you a picture of my failed capelet and a posterior shot in pocketless jeans. If that's not on the path to fearless, I don't know what is!

Capelet = Blah

Granted, my family is known for suffering from "
Noassatal". Hee hee.

8 comments:

Wendy said...

It's not a failure - it's just a trial run. I think it might be a bit big, but I think with a fantastic edging it could work.

Or back to the drawing board . . .

W

Anonymous said...

I think the fact that I can unravel my knitting is why I love it so much. It's the perfect foil to making art. I hear you on that whole 'fearless' thing. It is a big problem of mine.

Anonymous said...

No, I'm not going up to Boston. A bunch of my friends from the Netherlands are arriving in Philly tomorrow, so I'll be showing them the liberty bell, etc. However, my boyfriend will be up there (he's an MFA student at UNH), so I told him to say hi to everyone. If you see a short guy with curly hair talking to Sangram, that's probably Graham. Have fun and enjoy the show, I'm dieing to see it myself.
ps: a meet up sounds great, send me the info and I'm there!

Vanessa said...

I like your caplet, but of course it's you you need to please. A waste of time, energy, and yarn would be a piece that you knit up and then never wore. Can't wait to see the new metamorphosis!

Anonymous said...

i think it looked great so far. well now you know how to adjust it for the next time. ditto with wendy on the trial run. and we are sooooo sweater twins now!

Laura said...

We must be distantly related. If you took my entire family's rear ends and put them together, we would not have enough to fill a pair of pants.

Way to rip! I usually just gift it away, but sometimes I love the yarn so much I redo.

Courtney Kelley said...

It's no failure, it just needs a different increase rate. You want it to have more increase points so that it comes around your body. You have a half circle, or a bit more than half it looks like, but it isn't enough to come around the shoulders to cover you in the front. Think of it like this, you've knit the back and sleeves of a top down sweater but you forgot the fronts. You also may want to increase fast from the neck to down to the bust line and then slow down a little so that it's coming together around, like a yoke, and then falling straight down without too much "flounce." I can help you rethink it if you want. Don't be discouraged! You're a great knitter.

kat | Taylor Made designs said...

I love the caplet! I have one that I bought last fall. (yes, bought... I can't even knit a scart!) and I get tons of compliments whenever I wear it. I think you're almost there. The comment from Courtney is very insightful :) I agree, I think you are an awesome knitter.