Now that I do some production knitting to sell items at craft shows, I am even more careful to make sure I repeat fun projects and not boring ones.

What’s the Difference?

So, what distinguishes a design that’s enjoyable to knit as opposed to one that’s not?

The title of the blog says it all for me…if the pattern is boring, unchallenging, not compelling, I usually don’t enjoy the experience.  If the pattern is interesting, makes me want to get to the next repeat, has challenging techniques, I enjoy the experience.

I really shouldn’t say this about one of my own designs, but since I’m knitting two different scarves of my own design, I have to admit, I find one boring as hell and the other one I could make a dozen more times and still be enjoying it.

The Seven-Up Scarf is a an 8-row repeat that is mostly just knit 7, purl 7 or knit 7, slip 7.  I was working the scarf last night after a tiring day dealing with my mom’s realtors and kept nodding off…both because I was tired but also because I was bored to tears.  Each row also has over 400 stitches, so it seemed like I would never make any progress.

The Knitted Cross Stitch scarf seems to grow much more quickly…especially with the elongated row of stitches.  But it’s mostly just garter stitch…you’d think I’d be bored as shit knitting it.  But the cross-over technique is fun and the resulting fabric makes colors intermingle in a way that makes my eyes happy.  I have knit dozens of them and still enjoy the process.

There honestly isn’t very much difference between these two patterns, but my experience knitting them is very different.  I will never figure out the secret of design fun projects to knit.

Current Knitting

Now that I’ve dissuaded all blog readers from ever buying the Seven-Up Scarf design, I was able to finish the scarf last night.

It uses Madeline Tosh single-ply fingering weight yarn and it came out soft and warm and lovely (in my humble opinion).  And I love the luster of this burnt umber dyed yarn…it really glows.

But I still won’t be casting on for another one of these scarves in a while.