Fiber #37 :: Rockridge Blues

Speaking of the blues ...


This is something I knit up during the month of July. The month of July was certainly a Blues-y sort of month. I ran into a string of 3 weeks of consecutive wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night, unable-to-go-back-to-sleep insomnia. Which, for somebody who cannot drink coffee because it makes her jittery and headachey, is problematic indeed.

I also had a messy living situation that had to be resolved and got resolved in a messy fashion. It was resolved, thankfully, but involved many emails from my landlady that READ LIKE THIS (she was a drama queen throwing a tantrum), many weekends spent fruitlessly looking for housing, several weekends moving my stuff out of her place, and the resumption of 3.5 hour daily commute by public transportation. Yuck.


And work, though going swimmingly well on the surface, hit an emotional low for me ~ likely due to abovementioned factors but also due to feeling like I'd hit a wall and me having to mentally reconfigure what I thought I could contribute to the project I am leading. All this combined to make it really, really difficult for me to feel up for hanging out with friends, cooking, exercising, or doing much to maintain a sense of equilibrium.

A friend who has his MFT once kindly pointed out that sometimes when we're in a rut we avoid precisely the things that will help us out of the rut, thereby perpetuating the cycle - and it's funny, I can start to recognize these symptoms in myself of withdrawal and grumpiness which can eventually slide into depression if I am not careful, and yet sometimes it is hard for me to break from the cycle. Or rather, I try, but inconsistently, as though it wasn't important enough in life to invest sufficient effort. But isn't our mental sanity worth the effort?


Sometimes I think it is because there is some part of me that hates trying to be strong and forging ahead all of the time ... this sounds so non-feminist or non-post-feminist, but sometimes really I just want somebody else to come along and pick up the pieces for me. Sometimes. Intellectually, I know that I've made choices that stick me in this situation, but emotionally I feel like it would be nice if somebody else solved the problem for me. That yearning gets a lot louder when I'm tired and irritated and isolated and stressed and amidst that vortex of factors that will drag me down into The Cycle.

Sometimes, though, I'll remind myself that it's just because life is inconsistent. Our path through life is inconsistent, our path towards self-growth is inconsistent. What we want for ourselves is inconsistent.

Hm. This is so not how I thought I'd introduce this sweater.

This is my take on the popular Featherweight pattern. I used leftovers (and bought more of the blue) and knit up the Rowan Felted Tweed on size 6 needles to get gauge at 20 stitches/inch, which meant some math to reconfigure the pattern, but well worth the effort because let's be honest, who wants to knit up a cardigan in fingering weight yarn at 26 stitches/inch? Also, I love how floaty and lightweight yet warm the fabric is at this gauge.


Yikes, are my lats really that wide?


Aaa ... parently.

Anyhoo. I used 1 by 1 ribbing for the cuffs, bottom and front ribbing, and put in some subtle waist shaping via back darts. The yarn bloomed wonderfully and somehow, without even planning it, the length came out just perfect as well. The stripes are 12 rows wide and are exactly what I wanted. The whole thing is exactly what I wanted.


Even a slim side silhouette! "Rockridge" is the name of the neighborhood where I now live, where I've found a cute little house and two great roommates to live with. So ... although the making of this sweater saw me through one of the rougher months of 27, here's hoping the wearing of it will see happier times ahead!