Connections

"What every man needs, regardless of his job or the kind of work he is doing, is a vision of what his place is and may be. He needs an objective and a purpose. He needs a feeling and a belief that he has some worthwhile thing to do. What this is no one can tell him. It must be his own creation."

-- Joseph M. Dodge

My Grandpa was a lineman with Ma Bell...Pop Pop was too...and so is my Brother-in-Law who works for Verizon...those black cables lines that surround most of us connect all these amazing men.  There are 114,000,000 cable lines crossing the US connecting us to friends and loved ones at the touch of a few buttons.  It really is quite magical to me how a voice can travel from place to place at any time of day or night.

This thought had me up at two in the morning and I had a vision of a cabled scarf that I could design to honor these men in my family who have kept us connected over the years.  I imagined three cable lines that come together in a unique sort of way.

So I found a cable pattern I liked called Fishernet.  It was four cable lines all perfectly happily flowing into each other; so I shook things up a bit by removing one of the cables.  Now it was asymmetrical and very wonky to say the least.  So I charted two possibilities one with the bulbous exaggerated cables and one with nice flowing cables.  The charting reminded me of one of those pictures you stare at and suddenly everything shifts and you see whatever was hidden.  Suddenly, I could see the cable lines as clear as if they were really there.

I brought both charts to Knit Night and the girls voted on the flowing cable so that will be the one I swatch.  From beginning to end a new design can take quite a bit of time but sometimes everything flows and falls into place quickly and that is always a nice surprise.  But I suppose most things are like that.  

I have knit a pattern with no trouble at all; all my numbers work the first time and it just flows.  And then I have knit a pattern which I tink back more then I knit and I am dreading each stitch.  Sometimes I have silly setbacks that all can be chalked up to fate and not the pattern....such as this is the second day that I have forgotten a needle to finish my friend's baby sweater.  It has been that kind of week and it is only Tuesday.  *sigh*

Oh well, I still managed to get it done later that evening.  This cotton yarn is is Dark Horse, Desert Flower in black.  The pattern is Naughty Knots Top Down Baby Cardigan from February's Cast On.  I really enjoyed knitting this despite the fact I kept forgetting the needles.  

I adore the sheep buttons that I got at the Knitter's Nest, sorry the picture came out blue.  I want to make this again in something bright; the black was hard to see at times but when you have a city baby who likes his dark colors...I just went with it.  lol

I've been working really hard to put our brand on my patterns and get them up on Ravelry.  I've been making folders for all the patterns and systematically going through a checklist on each of them.  1) does the pattern work?,  2) layout the pattern, 3) photoshoot, 4) brand it, 5) check the whole thing again for accuracy and spelling and stuff and save it as a PDF...load it up and feel just a little freer.

The new ideas get folders too.  I get them to a point that I will be able to continue where ever I left off.  Which is where Linemen is.  It is all ready to be tested...and then I will make it reversible and test it again.   It all seems like a lot of work at times but when you see someone wearing something you designed and they tell you how much they love it...all the creation stress goes away.  Besides I really like the puzzle part of it.  Figuring out a pattern really is fun for me.  

I hope you all had a wonderful week; if not relax, make some tea and take some time to appreciate the wonderfulness that is you.

Happy crafting,
Ruinwen
:)

NOTE:  I had to change the settings to my comment feeds because of really bad spam.  Some of you said you couldn't read the little pictures with numbers and words and I agree: I can't either   So, I have moderated the comments.  I will try to keep up with them in a timely manner.  Thanks for your understanding.  Hugs!  :)