Mogwai Project

Mogwai Projects

If you have listened to the podcast, Sandy & I talked about mogwai projects turning into gremlins, and how it can be avoided by following some simple advice:

1. Don't feed them after midnight --- ie. Don't start a project after midnight, or when you're tired
2. The light of day burns any gremlins into the ground --- ie. Waiting until the morning will put things in clearer perspective.

This was my mogwai project that could have easily turned into a gremlin.
It started with my Stained Glass handspun. I thought I wanted to weave with it (and even bought a warp yarn for it) but it's far too nummy to wrap onto a shuttle. I wanted to feel the yarn with my hands...hence knitting with it.

In addition, I had some other criteria for it:

•  it needed to be a form of neckwear, in particular, a scarf...and I HATE knitting scarves...but I wanted a skinny scarf to wear anywhere with anything that wasn't a "winter" scarf. * it had to show off the wonderful colors of the handspun.
•  it needed to incorporate some form of lace -- not a lot, just enough.
•  it should be a quick, easy knit --- preferably in the round and not involving garter stitch So I perused around Ravelry.

It seemed that a "tube" scarf might do the trick, but I wasn't overly happy with just knitting stockinette stitch. I saw a couple of diagonal or bias knit scarves (like the Clapotis), but it involved flat knitting and not conducive to a skinny scarf. I looked at one of the patterns that was close to what I wanted, and started knitting a few rounds, then not like what I had done. However, it was "close" to what I wanted. So, I ripped the whole thing out, and using the spirit of the pattern, I sampled a few more times.....And I frogged the project several times over because I either:

1. didn't like the width or
2. didn't like how I was turning out.
3. all of the above.

Eventually, I managed to get something that was exactly what I wanted, but it took the better part of 2 hours to get to that point. If I had started this project shortly after midnight, I would have been up for that length of time, TRYING to get it right and getting frustrated because I was tired.

Instead, I waited until the next day to cast-on, and give myself plenty of time to figure out the pattern while I was fresh. Now, it's turned into my "potato-chip" knitting. The colors of the handspun are working up really well. And it's soft and squishy to the touch.

I've had to put aside my Basic Hoodie sweater to work on this scarf, because it's been so addicting to knit...and I don't normally like knitting scarves!

So, disaster averted! My wonderful cute little Mogwai project could have turned into a nasty, ugly gremlin if I had not paid attention to the rules.