so much better

In the special features at the end of the Vintage edition of the novel Gods Behaving Badly, author Marie Phillips explains "... the only way to discover what I do want to write is to write what I don't want to write." Reading that was like looking in a mirror - not just in the way I write my blogs but also in the way I knit.

Reviewing finished projects for this pattern in Ravelry helped me visualize the stitch pattern at it's best. And, after knitting 40 odd rounds in Paton's Stretch Sock I had to acknowledge that the sock wasn't working out at all the way I wanted. The colours were pooling and obscuring the stitched pattern. Seeing that made me realize that I needed a more subtly variegated yarn - like my new choice Peter Pan 4 ply in a print called Lupin Crush. Boy, am I glad I switched!

By knitting what I didn't want to knit, I could see more clearly what I did want to knit. If that makes any sense at all?! Realizing this, I'm less impatient with my many false starts - they're necessary steps in getting the result I want.