So I worked most of the day (including during Max’s “Author’s Presentation” at his 4th grade class yesterday) on the body section below the yoke, and at 10:00 last night I decided it both sucked and blew.
It’s good in many ways, but not as good as I’d like – and, most important, it can easily be made better.
So I ripped it out. And today I’ll reknit it so that it’s lighter, less bulky (Annie sez: “Bulk around the body = not a great look”) and I’ll get rid of that ugly tell-tale reverse st st line around the bottom of the yoke.
This is NOT unusual for me, and this is how I like to work (farming stuff out to knitters is great – and it can work well – but my best designs come as a result of trial and error while I’m designing)
By trying stuff I can also – as a knitter – come up with the best ways to make a sweater knitable.
By that I mean, making a sweater as much fun to knit as it can be, without annoying non-sensical steps that seemed like a good idea in theory, but in practice turned out to be useless.
It’s also how I come up with tricks and tips for a particular sweater: Little things to bear in mind which allow a knitter to memorize certain parts of the pattern, or places where the pattern can be adapted to a specific body type.
I once figured that I ripped out an average project between 3-5 times during the design process. Thank heavens I really like ripping out!