Ruthless Knitting Archive

The Kinari cardigan has reached a tough stage. Progress seems slow, the sweater is all scrunched up on the needles, and I’m having periods of doubt about some of my decisions. Will it be too wide at the bottom? I don’t own anything swingy, maybe for good reason. Will the bright white of the buttons look okay on the unbleached white of the sweater?

I suspect that many sweater projects are abandoned at this stage, when the fantasy that propels you through the first half of the knitting starts to fade, papered over with doubts. The rows are long now, and the edges all curl under, and it’s hard to envision just how the final product will work out.

It’s been my experience that art in general hardly ever works out just the way I imagine it will. But it often works out in a different way than I could have imagined — a way that is just as good, once I’ve managed to let go of the image of the old thing and to love the new thing as it is.

So I press on, one long row at a time, because that’s the only way to find out what this sweater will be when it’s finished.