Peace of Mind Organizing

Froggin'

26 November 2006

My first big project after I started knitting in 2005 (I knit as a kid, but hadn’t picked up needles in decades) was the Einstein Coat, from Sally Melville’s book The Knit Stitch. This is a multidirectional garter stitch coat. It’s not hard to do, but it’s a big task. I knew next to nothing about knitting, which was okay because it was all garter stitch (just straight knitting, no purling). But there was a little seaming involved, and picking up stitches.

I swear I knit a gauge swatch. Nevertheless, when I finally finished my Einstein Coat, the thing was more like a sweater than a coat. And the wrists were tiny. I’m actually a very small person—sometimes a size 2P shirt is too big for me. But this coat was too small.

I was quite disappointed. So I put it away in a closet. And I pretty much forgot about it. I chose to forget abut the $100 in Lamb’s Pride Bulky that I put into the thing, not to mention the three months of daily knitting.

But one day this fall I started thinking about all that great, feltable yarn tied up in that sweater, which was shoved into a closet. And I decided to liberate it. I borrowed a ball winder from my friend Lisa from my knitting group and last night I unraveled it—what knitters call frogging. Because of the way the sweater was put together, it wasn’t quite as easy to frog as I would have liked, but when it went well, it was very enjoyable. And now I have four big balls of Lamb’s Pride Bulky waiting to be transformed into felted bowls, boxes, maybe a purse, who knows.

Here’s the sweater right before I starting frogging it:

The Einstein Coat in its last moments

And this is as far as I got before I wearied of battling the ball winder:

What's left of the Einstein Coat after frogging

I have to say that rather than feel let down by my failed Einstein Coat, I feel really good about reusing that yarn. I’m making lemonade out of lemons. And I’m saving money on yarn.

Now I have to think about what I’m going to do with the sweater I made from Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Super Chunky. It’s a gorgeous yarn but an ugly sweater—again, gauge and seaming problems. I think frogging might be in my future again…

Tagged with: felting, frogging, sweater, yarn

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