Of course, I'm not quite sure what a bramblefly is exactly. I had this idea where I wanted to mix the two sides of what has become a very awkward friendship, this really rugged, rough around the edges kind of deal with this really soft sweet side. So as many projects begin I began digging through my stash (which, I must say, is drastically decreasing as I've come up with projects such as this to use them tons of yarn) and found this yarn that is most likely older than myself, but it's pink and it's sparkly. Perfect. So yarn found, I spent about a day going through all of my stitch dictionaries in search of that one perfect stitch. I found the bramble stitch and thought " great, bobbles". Now, normally I absolutely hate bobbles and avoid them at all costs, but this one was small enough when worked with the yarn I had chosen, but textured enough to still get my point across. I began knitting and became incredibly frustrated because it's really a pattern you have to pay attention to until you get the hang of it, and once you do get the hang of it all you want to do is put it down forever because it gets quite tedious.
I knew I couldn't keep going like this, if I were ever going to finish this I'd have to trick myself into thinking that once I'm done the base of this cropped cardigan that there was something new to look forward to. So as I'm knitting, I keep going through the design in my mind, and I keep wondering what stitch I could use for the sleeves but still keeping in mind that it can't be anything too crazy because the bramble stitch is crazy enough for me. I think I've settled on something plain, but a belled ruffled cuff with butterflies. Hence the bramblefly was born.I've been working on it on and off for about a week, and I've only managed to get the front panels and half the back finished. I'm both incredibly excited and scared for the finished object because it seems as if nothing ever works out quite the way I think it will, but it wouldn't be fun if it did.
Halfway through working on this, I think "I MUST be knitting like a million stitches a day" which just proves how tedious it feels to me to be doing this stitch repeatedly row after endless row on teeny tiny needles. A few years ago, I decided to track each and every stitch I made every day to compare when the project was finished which days I knit the most. I'm a stat junkie, I can't help it, when there' s variable numbers, I'm all over it. So, I decided to try and record my stitches every day that I knit and compile them into a nice little chart that serves no purpose once the novelty wears off. Just my thing.
And then things really got started when I came across a thread on Ravelry about how many hours on average do people knit every day, which really got me thinking and gave me the extra push to finally start recording everything. I started with time, but soon realized that sometimes I'll knit for five minutes while waiting in line...several times a day and am far too lazy to figure out how many of those small knitting breaks there were and how long each one was, but stitch tabulating is really just some easy math.
As it is with the beginning of every project, I'm obviously quite enthusiastic and can't put it down, then the novelty wears off and I only knit a few thousand stitches a day. I'll be examining my stitch stat patterns every Monday and comparing them like the huge dork that I am.
I'm going to pretend as if I've been blogging this whole time, and never took a four month break after my very first post.
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