It’s New Years Day 2008 and I’m ready for a fresh start.

I’m always energized for a new year as I get pretty run down feeling as the year wears on.

I’m trying something new to me and actually writing a pattern before jumping into the knitting. I often knit from my own designs which have most often started from an established pattern that I’ve modified to my desires. A couple months ago I knit a hat based on a non-knitted one I purchased at a fabulous hat shop on Granville Island, BC. I didn’t write down the pattern (or I’m ashamed to say, knit a guage swatch); I just worked intuitively. Needless to say I did A LOT of frogging, but ended up with a cute hat. I intended to write the pattern after I completed the project, but a few months have passed and it’s still not written down.

[Blue Sky Alpaca chunky weight yarn in a powder blue.]

So, I’m trying something new and writing the pattern ahead of time for a new knitting project I’ve designed based around these super fun buttons I found.

[Handmade skull buttons from NW Handspun in Bellingham, WA. Designer unknown.]

I’m calling it Swashbuckler Leg Warmers. For those of you have written patterns before, you know what I mean when I write, it’s one gigantic word problem. Word problems were never my strength in math class, but my left brain is attacking it relentlessly while my right brain taunts it with thoughts of just getting stitches on the needles and going for it. “Who needs a pattern?!”, it says.

Currently, I have 4 pages of scribbles, sketches, math problems, and several attempts at writing something understandable based on the afore-mentioned scribbles, sketches, and math problems. You would think leg warmers wouldn’t be that complex; however, I’ve decided to do a bit of calf shaping and at the same time create a series of buttonholes. Instead of knitting in the round on dpn’s, these will be knitted flat (from the bottom up) and then buttoned closed. I’m making good progress and hope to cast-on in a couple hours.

Apparently my left brain is having a blast because as I was falling asleep last night, I considered taking the same design and knitting it lengthwise. This would mean that the calf shaping would done with short rows which could look interesting. I’ll finish my initial idea first though.

When my brain needs a break, I just head over to the knitting machine where my mesh nightgown is in progress and I do a few rows there. You can see pictures in the Knitting Gallery.

Happy New Year and I hope you are motivated to tackle some projects in 2008 that expand your abilities and task your current knitting level. Cheers!

Posted by Jeszica on Tuesday, January 1st, 2008 at 2:55 pm.