Rethinking

I am blanketed of late with an uncomfortable restlessness, as though my psyche were an ill conceived beginner's sweater of cheap itchy wool, one armhole far too tight, the sleeves different lengths, and the seams all bunchy and ill-matched. I suppose there is some cyclical hormonal overlay at the moment (how humbling these little neurochemicals are in their ability to ride roughshod over what I like to call Myself) but the trend is undeniable.

I have been slowly leaving my Chosen Profession for years now and this business of keeping one toe in it for guilt and practicality's sake is increasingly feeling like a ludicrous sham. It's like when you run down a battery - and if you leave it sit for a while you can get a few more minutes life out of it, and you can do that a bunch of times, for increasingly shorter bits of life, until finally it's well and truly dead. After the initial burnout, I tried to convince myself that time off and part-time hours were recharging the battery - but in fact, I think I've just been draining off that final bit of juice at intervals for the last six years - and it's clearly almost gone.

What I want to do is not so hard to ascertain, what I ought to do is much more difficult, and what is financially practical to do - there's the rub. The Chosen Profession, soul-destroying though it has become, is very financially practical.

Back to fibre:

My discontent has extended to the knitting - the cute little top from VK: is not working out, due in approximately equal parts to the yarn substitutions I made and the fact that when all is said and done I just don't like the design as much as I thought I would. For one thing, the top panel is clearly not going to work at all in the yarn I chose, and for another the whole thing is a bit lumpy and cumbersome and probably looks much better in 2D on a lingerie clad model standing perfectly still with her chest jutting out unnaturally than it ever will on me in real life. I still like the concept of a lacy camisole in a variety of hues and weights of white / natural / cream yarn - it's just that I now think I Can Design a Better One Myself. We shall see - in the meantime, I have lived in this skin long enough to know that a hormonally heightened state of restlessness with an approaching deadline is not the time to embark upon a design adventure.

So, (hopefully) to the rescue, is this:

It's the little steek vest from Loop-d-Loop by Teva Durham, and I have substituted Jaeger Celeste: since I couldn't track down the recommended yarn. I achieved row and stitch gauge in the swatch, and I am fervently hoping this will work. I love love love the designs in this book, but I've recently been a little put off by the difficulties encountered by some other knit bloggers attempting to knit from another adventurous designer's new book - hopefully Durham has done the necessary test knitting. I'm going to be doing a lot of knitting from this book regardless, but I'm just not in the mood for glitches right now.

Speaking of glitches, it turns out I'm a couple of balls short of a sleeve for the tunic (and I like to think I'm a math whiz - arrgh) and Gedifra Korfu seems to have disappeared from the planet. Not to worry, I have a Cunning Plan, for which I have already ordered the yarn. More on that another day.