Finally Woke Up from my Knitting Funk

I gotta admit, after finishing The All Around Stitch Dictionary, I was knitted out. Completely and utterly knitted out. I was so knitted out, that all I knit were socks and little squares. I knit, like, 200 or more squares that were not swatches for the books. Part of me thinks that, after literally three years of knitting swatch after swatch trying to figure out how to crack the code of making it make sense flat, in the round, and upside down as I did for both Up, Down, All-Around Stitch Dictionary and The Knitting All Around Stitch Dictionary, my brain decided that I couldn't knit unless all I did was make garter log cabin square after square, or ersatz sock after sock after sock. 

It took about four months of repetition, but I finally knit a garment! And I actually enjoyed it!

I remember the actual moment when the urge hit me. I was sitting in my office staring at yet another rerun of Beverly Hills 90210 and I spotted a hank of linen there in the wicker basket next to the tv. I got up, walked over to it and remembered how it felt to knit with linen. Lovely, lovely linen. Yeah, I thought, it's tough on the hands, but boy oh boy does it reward when it's all complete.

The trouble with linen, though, is that you can't just knit it (especially in the round) in stockinette stitch or it will bias. Linen is made of a type of fiber that will do that to you. (Just try it and see, but I hope you don't because it'll make you sad.) So, even though I felt the beginnings of the urge to actually knit "something" again, I knew that if I were to use the linen--my favorite fiber--that I'd have to commit to something that required me to actually pay attention, even just a little bit.

I poured through my stitch dictionaries and found a simple texture pattern that was easy enough remember that would also keep my project from biasing. The stitch pattern is called "Purl Texture" and when working it in the round it works like this:

Rnd 1: *K3, p3; rep from asterisk to end.

Rnds 2 - 4: Knit.

Rnd 5: *P3, k3; rep from asterisk to end.

Rnds 6 - 8: Knit.

While the texture is subtle, there is enough of a break-up in the field of stockinette stitch that prevents the linen from biasing.

The bad news is, I didn't write down the pattern. I do have notes, however, and I'm considering writing it up for sale. I modeled it after a racer-back tank that I have. It's one of those that you buy in packets at the five and dime. I wanted this to be much, much looser and more of a tunic so I tried it on as I knit it. It's knit in the round from the bottom up all in one piece. I usually would choose to knit around a 34" to a 36" bust for my frame, but I wanted this to be oversized, and it is (I think it might measure around 40"). All in all, I quite like it and it'll serve me well. I confess I normally don't wear what I knit (it's just too hot even for a lightweight sweater most of the time), but this is the kind of thing I'll definitely use for years. It's perfect as a beach coverup as well.

I used about four hanks of Euroflax Sport Weight Linen in what they call Heron Grey. To me, it looks more blue. The color you see in the pictures is true despite the colorfulness of the pictures. (I guess I'm lucky I'm married to a guy who knows how to use a camera.)

In other news: Girlfriend started high school. High school! She's about as tall as me and her feet are a 9.5 ladies (Mine are about 8-8.5, so...) This, my friends, is cray-cray. And to think when I started this blog she was barely potty trained.

Double P.S.: Looks like I'm working on another stitch dictionary. More on that to come.