KTS: strategy development

The first day of KTS had a lot of opportunities for reaching goals. It also had some conclusions that were, well, shitty.

After a good discussion with the ever-practical J-A last night, I did a rough sort of the projects into two categories: "easy to knit in public/socially" and "headbreakingly difficult".

Easy to knit in public/socially means:

• small enough to carry around comfortably
• able to talk to other people and knit without screwing up the pattern
• not so weird-looking that strangers on the subway will keep asking what the hell it is

Headbreakingly difficult means:

• the project and/or amount of yarn needed to be on hand is too large to carry around comfortably in a garbage bag
• the knitter is slave to the pattern, needing to check the instructions several times per round/row
• the project has previously encouraged strangers on the subway to ask what the hell it is

The current strategy is to keep one project in the "easy" category in a small bag and take it out in public/socially. The first project up for this are the "hearts and harps" socks, whose proper pattern name is "Kristi":

Since this photo was taken on the weekend, I've got one more motif repeat done. One more repeat after that and some toe shaping, and I should have a finished sock to blog about. Which means... I'll be at the 50% mark with that particular project.

I picked the double knitted jacket as the difficult project. It really is freaking difficult, and tedious, and heavy, and impossible to work on when there are other people around. I've tried in the past, and I always wind up ripping out what I did. On 420 stitches, that is no fun. Each row of that thing takes over half an hour.

On the other hand, unlike some of the other stuff on this list, I'm looking forward to wearing this one.

This isn't going to be a series of daily "ta-da" moments. This is going to be more like watching a marathon or the Tour de France. Except, you know, knitting. Stay tuned...