Bohemia

I don’t know if you’ve ever had this experience, but it’s quite wonderful: Your mind is overflowing with ideas, they’re rushing at you, unrelenting, confused, yet they all make sense, and you can see the end goal so clearly, as if it already exists in the world instead of your mind. I used to have this experience with my writing – I could see the words printed on the page before they ever left my head. I haven’t had that in a long time. Apparently now I’m getting it with knitting. (Not sure I’ve ever had it with photography – wait – that’s not true. It happens in the moment when I’m outside among the flowers. I see what I want. Sometimes I come back home and I didn’t get it – and I will go back outside to reshoot. But it’s never the same urgency as with the writing. Never the same, if I don’t get this down RIGHT.THIS.SECOND. I will regret it for the rest of my life. How’s that for pressure?)

Enter Bohemia – a name so lacking in originality it might just be original:

What’s that you say? It looks like a swatch? Yes, just a swatch, but within this swatch holds the DNA if you will, the cosmic design, of an entire cardigan sweater. With saddle sleeves. And gorgeous wood buttons from Tender Buttons in NYC that haven’t been purchased yet and will probably cost more than the yarn but are stunning. Stunning I tell you. And exotic. Made from something like coconuts or the backs of beetles. (Okay, yeah, I know. Neither coconuts or beetles are wood – but coconuts grow on trees and beetles eat trees – don’t they eat trees? Indulge me people. I’m excited here!)

It may seem like a simple cable design (again, I’m stuck on this – can I call it design when really I’m just combining cables from the Harmony Guide to Aran Knitting?) but really it’s everything I’ve been looking for. I’ve been wanting to do cables, because, you know, short rows haven’t been challenging enough. No really, I’ve been wanting to do cables what with all the Alice Starmore floating around in the ether. But I don’t want to do an AS design (BLASPHEMER!! tut, tut, tut!) because I know I’d never wear it. I bought some JS DK Silkroad Tweed in the Boheme color (because the two colors I have sitting at home just weren’t right for this project) and immediately was inspired when it arrived. I thought maybe I’d use it for the Seed Stitch Cable Cardigan, but I started swatching it and didn’t like it. So I started looking through my cable books. This one’s too much. This one’s not enough. And then I found it.

See it? The crisscross in the middle grows out of three C6Bs. So what better way to surround it but with C6Bs? So nice, right?

I really want saddle sleeves on this sweater. I just love the way the cable can travel over the shoulder – ever since I bought Ann Budd’s book, I’ve known I was going to do a saddle sleeve cable sweater. So last night, while my swatch was nice and damp and sitting waiting to dry and be measured, I’m looking through the book and the measurements for the sleeve. My beautiful, lovely C6B into a twist is too big for the sleeve. Now, before you all come out of the wood work and tell me that I can change the pattern?!? please, let me live within my boundaries. I’m not changing the template pattern. It’s hard enough I’m trying to make my idea into an actual THING. But it’s all okay because I also realized that I’m probably going to need something else in the pattern anyway. Some kind of 10-12 stitch cable that will be perfect up the middle back and on either side of the front button holes. I won’t have enough room to do two large cables (surrounded by two C6Bs), but I’ll need to fill the space. Enter the new cable. I don’t know what it is. But rest assured, I’ll be pouring over the books today. Maybe I’ll throw an AS cable in there anyway. It’s possible. And for sure this new, yet to be discovered, beyond fantastic cable, will be traveling up my saddle sleeve!

Can anyone tell me – how do you chart on the computer? Is there software with all the little do hickies to make cables and twists, or do you make them up yourself?

God I hope this works out. I will be really, really disappointed if it doesn’t.

In other knitting news, I’m completely bored by the Clap (hence the foray into Bohemia) and I am beyond missing short rows. My self-imposed exile (I WILL NOT START THE FRONT UNTIL THE ENDS ARE IN ON THE BACK!) is killing me – but I will not cave. I promise to weave in some ends today. And maybe start on the sleeve again. Oh yeah. I’ve got to do that Clap too. It’s a gift. Birthday’s Friday. It’ll be late, but do I want it to be THAT late?

Speaking of late, I owe people. People, I know! Please forgive me! The gifts/contest winnings will be coming. They will! I swear. I’m trying to give you the bestest gift I can so I’m waiting a little while longer. Just know I haven’t forgotten.

Wherever you are, whomever you’re with, have a beautiful day!