Nov 18: does not follow directions

My knitting habits are starting to get a bit silly. I use to be so orderly, so follow the pattern. Now I start off deciding I don't like the way it is written and venture out to do it a different way. Or worse combine two patterns to make the thing I really want to make. Take this hat for instance. A friend asked for the pattern today and i couldn't give it to her because it started as this toasty topper, got reversed (became bottom to top instead of top down) and then I switched over to this baby jester hat with a lot of hand waiving in between.

Poor Carrie S had to suffer through my horrible teaching when I tried to teach her how to make toe up socks. Which starts with Judy's Magic toe up socks, switches over to the universal sock pattern which I was re-writing as we went, finally I usually bail out of when I get past the heel and do my own random increases until the socks fit right. It also feels like the more I explained the less I communicated. I'm obviously a big fan of knitty.com and get most of my bad encouragement inspiration from there.

So the newest project is a sweater for JoyGirl. I want to stick with my current obsession, two round needles and knitting in a whole piece, but sweaters are usually knitted in separate pieces and then sown together at the end. [If your inner voice added a boring after you read that, you are probably as bad as I am.] So this Helena pattern would be perfect right? But I also really like this lacy Reid pattern, too bad it's piece work....or is it? Could I think of a way to knit in pattern in the round? And why not take what I learned from making seamless raglan sweaters from a 1976 leaflet I picked up from my mom, only as a cardigan? What could possible go wrong since I've never done lace work?

I then start doing crazy math and dive in. And more often than not pull out some, back up, rehash the math, start again. But that's the fun of it. Why would I want to make something that can be reproduced? Knitting to me is a lot like working in clay on the wheel. Only Very. Slowly.