Smoke and Mirrors

It's not that I really wanted to try duplicate stitch, or that I wanted to bow down to the "chocqua" gods. No, it's all smoke and mirrors.

I started this little chocolate toddler cardigan mid-July last summer (yes, many months ago). I was well on my way to finishing it within a few lazy weeks, but then...I started the second skein. Yes, it was from the same dyelot, but as I started knitting it was so clearly milk chocolate next to dark chocolate, breakfast blend next to espresso. It was jarring and disappointing.



I really didn't feel like ripping it out at the time. So I started thinking of options. It's cotton (a wonderfully soft and lovely cotton by Blue Sky), so I couldn't overdye it very easily. If I ripped back and alternated skeins it would look stripey - blech. I could rip out the whole thing and see which of my 4 skeins looked the best together. While I was thinking I finished the body of the sweater - just to see what it would look like. I couldn't decide what to do, so the sweater went into a time out. I kept it was an active WIP in Ravelry, just so I would remember I should deal with it at some point.

I have been jonesing for a FO lately - my knitting mojo has been on vacation, the last thing I have actually finished was my Pi - gasp, that was back in January. I thought to myself, "this little sweater only needs some sleeves. I will just continue on and finish the sleeves and see what I think."

As you can probably guess, it was no better, it was just finished. So, what to do with my little two-toned cardigan?
Distract the eye!
Smoke and mirrors.
Duplicate stitch.


Ravelry Project Page

My one complaint is that I was knitting this sweater as gender neutral - to be swayed one way or the other by button choice. Now with the duplicate stitch, I think it looks more feminine regardless of which buttons I choose.
So I picked up some little orange flowers. I just couldn't pass them up.




So why have I been in such a knitting dry spell?
I have been focused on a different Work in Progress - which should be finished late September.



I have been feeling the knitting mojo finally coming back lately, and have some ideas of knits to work on before this fall.