When you get better, you frog!

I always say that the measure of whether you do something well is how well you handle mistakes and how willing you are to deal with the bad stuff. From management to knitting, it's all the same. I must be going really well with my knitting as the two personal projects I've had on the go have both been frogged....back to the start!

The first is 'Leaving' from the Twist Collective. I highly recommend this online magazine. The designs are really interesting and there are things to read. They support themselves by the advertising, but also by selling the patterns.

I wanted to support them by buying a pattern and when I saw this pattern, I decided that it was the one! However, choosing a slightly different yarn meant that even though I swatched, it did seem to be coming out a bit small, so I started again. I kept trying to convince myself that it was fine, but you have to be honest with yourself......so I frogged and started again, AND, am much happier.

From the beautiful to the simple, well that was the second journey. I won't go looking, but I did start another cardigan. There wasn't enough yarn, my compromise sleeves were too much of a compromise and it just sat there, so:

Then, I started:

Which is from the latest Vogue Knitting (or Designer Knitting as it comes to us, via England!) I love the simplicity and if I don't have enough yarn I have a stylish and happy finish, which will involve another colour and an odd sleeve. I love that, so here it is, so far:

Now I'm a happy knitter!

Frogging

When people ask me if I have a lot of UFO's, I can honestly answer 'no'. If you look at my current set of projects, I think you can see that this is a fair response. I have a pair of socks I'm currently knitting for myself. These have been put aside by the knitting of a blanket for Woolybutt's bushfire appeal.

I have a couple of fingerless mittens, waiting for buttons and a scarf that requires a fastener. This is fair game as I am confident these will be finished and find their way to my Etsy shop.

I have also some UFO's that will be frogged because they're experiments that haven't quite worked out. I usually wait for inspiration and these cause me no problems.

You can see from this that I'm happy with the state of affairs and I like to keep it that way.

So WHY, after reading an article in the latest 'Yarn Forward' magazine about frogging, a subject I don't need any further information on, and while a pleasant read didn't afford much in the way of new information, did I end up with:

This is a jumper that I've had for many years, it started out as this:

It came from a pattern book called 'The Creators' published in 1986, which is when I purchased it. It does, nowadays often appear in op shops. I don't know why as I still like looking at it and it has some interesting designs. You might have guessed the era from the hairstyle and makeup?

I have worn this jumper to death. It's very open and catches on everything and finally there are too many snags/holes to look good. To emphasize the age, when I frogged the seaming was in back stitch and I can't remember the last time I used back stitch, mattress stitch being my preferred method of finishing off my knitting.

I don't need a new project, not just yet, but I will skein up the balls wash it and contemplate when to start on this:

From the latest Designer Knitting (Vogue knitting - still not really used to the new name). I figure that in our hot climate, I can't really justify another jumper.

And really, all I want to do is start!