What I am (Un)Knitting

My knitting life very nearly resembles my actual life these days... Lots of projects, none of them complete, never enough time.  That's partly why this blog has been tossed into the corner like a half-finished blanket that's fun to knit but it just takes so long to get through even a single row...

My knitted afghan and a prayer shawl have had a few stitches added here and there over the past few months, and I am still wrestling with gauge on the clerical collar.  The announcement of a new baby in the family finally pulled knitting into a higher priority than, say, mowing the yard, and I searched Ravelry and several pattern books for the sweetest baby blanket pattern I could find.  I chose Pocket Dreams (Rav link) from a tiny little collection of Vogue patterns.  (Now that I look at the Ravelry link, it has universally bad reviews, but so far I think it's cute...we'll see how I feel when I'm knitting those 500+ stitch rows at the end...)

And so now I am...unknitting it.  I know that technically it's "tinking," but that makes it sound like so much more fun than it is.  Especially because the reason I have to unknit all these stitches is because I didn't read the pattern all the way through before I began.  Increasing every other row is, clearly, much different than increasing every row.  Sigh.

There's a mistake even nearer the beginning, too, but I think it may stay as a "design element".  Again, reading the instructions all the way through ahead of time would have been a plus.  The blanket has a precious little pocket in the middle of all its stripes, into which a little knitted toy bear fits perfectly.

The red strip is a life-line, just in case... Once I get going again, I think it will be lots of fun to knit, a nice easy pattern with regular color changes and increases to keep it interesting.  I'm using Caron Simply Soft on size 6 needles.

Now that I think about it, perhaps I need to unknit a little bit of life, too.  Tink back a few rows, a few obligations, a few pattern repeats that have me frustrated and tired.  I've been trying to give up a few tasks and activities and responsibilities in order to make room for a little more faithfulness to my knitting other jobs, like writing those sermons and mowing the yard and getting some sleep and keeping a blog and, best of all, spending time with my family.