The Delights of Choice.

For a most of my life I have been a monogamous knitter. I made beautiful garments, one at a time, to clothe my family, to order by design. There was always pressure to complete them.

These are some of the earliest garments I knitted for the Lindele Studio the second studio that I worked for.

Early Kaffe Fasset -  hand-dyed and spun angora rabbit

This is the easiest jersey I designed. It was for a magician who wanted to have less formal wear. He loved it. The stars are gold and the red is glittery too. The photos are old. This was made before the ones above, in the late eighties.

After 20 years of knitting like this I stopped completely. There was no longer pleasure when knitting and no yarn passed over my fingers for 5 years.

When we moved to the UK ten years ago, I tentatively began to knit again. I wanted patterns and yarn that were perfect, that required no tweaking, to have a peaceful, meditative knitting experience with the least fuss.

Initially, I knitted mostly for myself or made secret projects for my family hiding them until they were completed. I could take time and complete them with no pressure. I was still a monogamous knitter.

Slowly, I was seduced as the enjoyment returned and I have become a scarlet knitting woman. I have been lured away from my monogamous ways by hoards of beautiful patterns and gorgeous yarn. I am learning to spin too!

Every day is an adventure in fibre.  My monogamous ways have flown out the window, as each day offers me the delight of a myriad of choices; a sock, lace shawl, cabled cardigan, textured cardigan. I can pick up and knit what I fancy and I am quite unattached to any of them. If I change my mind I can frog them and start again. This is a wonderful benefit for having knitted for others for many years.

Some of the projects on my needles currently are:

Eala Bahn has been progressing very slowly since I had to rip back 16 rows. I have knitted about four since then. Notice the cable on the left had a will of its own and refused to fall into line with the rest, making its own wayward way up through the centre of the design. It does not exist any more!

As the Cookie A Cubist socks are complete,

a new sock project is in the making out of Skeinqueen's Blush - Helter Skelter 80% merino 20%cashmere and it is beautifully soft. The pattern will be of my own making, probably with some cables or a celtic twist on the top. I am still loving the 2 circular needles.

I have been led astray by a lace and texture shawl called Maia by Rosemary Hill, knitted in Jilly Bean's delightful sock, 70% baby alpaca, 20% silk and 10% cashmere. What a fabulous pattern and such a great design.  She is beautiful and so soft and she just wants to be held all the time. It has been such fun to knit and is luring me to be monogynous for a while ....... but I am fighting the urge.