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Tuesday 17 April 2012

Procrastination

I just cannot bring myself to throw the tulips away


In their almost dead, petal dropping state they are still so beautiful.  Like some fading society beauty photographed by Cecil Beaton.

I am the master of procrastination.  At university, despite being a mature student (a 38yo mother of 4 when I began my first year reading law at Cambridge) I very quickly mastered the art.  I know I should have known better but...

Supervision to go to - hours spent in the law library photocopying the cases and articles I needed to read before the 4pm deadline - reason, 'I could not work in the library needing the comfort of my room, coffee and biscuits before I could concentrate'.  

Essay to write, ditto photocopying and a whole packet of cadbury's boaster choc and hazelnut cookies.  

Exam revision- a master class in procrastination 
1. I needed to give the children some mummy time over the Easter holiday 
2. I could not begin to revise until I felt enough anxiety to give me the necessary drive 
3. I have to have a set of spiral edged notebooks (one for each paper), A5 size, a set of highlighter and half a dozen pencils and a pencil sharpener.  
4. day 1 of actual revision, sharpen all the pencils (and repeat as necessary between bouts of doing the actual revision)

Many years on I am unreformed.  At the beginning of the year I resolved not to have so many knitting and sewing projects on the go.  It seems that whenever a shop gives out one of those handy calico bags for life I find a new knitting project to fill it.  If you look at my ravelry page you might think that too-much-stuff-on-the-go is not one of my vices but you would be wrong.  I just don't get around to posting the WIPs.  My resolution was not to work on only one project at a time but to have less and to finish up everything that had been sat in a bag for more than a year.

With that in mind I am working very hard on my vintage cardigan.  I am nearly there, 


but I have recently experienced a return of the Old Trouble.  I bought a Swift and cannot resist playing with it and winding off the odd skein or two


 And then my attention alighted on this


Swiftly Swifted it became this


There are 800 yards of aran weight Araucania, after a search on Ravelry (it is so easy to search under yardage, weight,, style - its Google for knitters) I came up with this which the pattern says can be made in any size from size 8 up to HUGE with 750 - 1,500 yards of aran weight

© Spoked cardigan by Carol Feller
I need to make a medium sized version - very roughly I  would need 1,100 yards for this sweater. I realise I am asking a lot to make a sweater out of my yarn but there is far too much for a cowl and its too chunky for a shawl so I am stamping my feet and shouting I WANT A SWEATER.

So here is a possible solution, I have another 300 yards of a very similar colour in DK weight.  I figure the slight variation in colour will not matter as all the yarn is hand dyed and varies quite considerably (the producer recommends to knit with two balls in alternate rows to blend the colours.  As for weight, I'm thinking I shall knit all the ribbing in the DK, as the main body is knitted side to side and the ribbing added later.  What does anyone think? (and dont worry about telling me to finish the vintage project first - I'm already telling myself that!)

extra DK yarn in the centre

xx

C

PS My old college is Lucy Cavendish its well worth checking out the website,r even if setting off fo university is farthest from your mind at the moment.  I first read about the college in a women's magazine when a nurse on night duty.  I cut out the article and pinned it to my kitchen notice board.  The cutting was old, yellow, and curly before I took it down and seriously considered completing my education.

5 comments:

strikk handknits said...

Hehe, I love this post and I love the procrastination bit......oh, how I can relate. And yes, wool, wool, yarn, yarn, always the big distractions. Really.... :-)
Happy week.
xx

Minding My Own Stitches said...

I think you could intersperse your DK with the other, although I'd be tempted to alternate it into the body of the sweater rather than isolate it as ribbing where it may be more obvious. As well, perhaps you could consider slightly shorter 3/4 length sleeves?

Good luck! And yes please finish that vintage cardigan too!

Brooke said...

My goodness that Araucania is gorgeous, and I love their yarns so much. And your vintage sweater is coming along beautifully! I'm looking forward to seeing the results. :)

Eatsruns said...

My Mum went to uni when she had two small children, and was the model mature student. She got all of her essays done two weeks before the due date. She's absolutely aghast that I'm still writing them the day before the due date.

So yeah, I hear you. In the next two weeks I have to finish a 4000 word essay and write a dissertation proposal. And I feel like if I'm spending all that money to do it, I should really do a good job!

Ah, well. No knitting for me for a while.

sara said...

Hi Catherine,

I've found you at last, I couldn't for the life of me remember the name of your blog, then I was reading 'The Knitting Den' and your name jumped out of her blog list........sorry, it's me Florrie, I began a new blog about a year ago, missed blogging so much, but I'm using my grandmothers name for the same reasons I deleted my prevoius blog.

Anyway from one procrastinator to another, how are you?