Knitting and Crochet Blog Week: Are you a knitter for all seasons?

Short answer: (via Lana Kane of Archer) Noooooope. Longer answer, my knitting habits wax and wane through the year. Wisconsin and the Midwest in general see the full range of seasons, with negative temps and blizzards in the winter, and melt your face off heat and humidity in the summer. I've historically bitched and moaned each summer about the heat and how little I feel like knitting. Hats, socks, sweaters, scarves and mittens make up my lifeblood, and aren't ideal.

I find that I have the problem of starting a piece in one season, and finishing it as soon as it's out of season. I keep swearing that I'm going to plan better, and actually made a tiny step in the right direction recently.

Last summer I tried to use up some cotton yarn that I'd bought at a fire sale (can't...resist...bargains). I plugged in all of my parameters into the pattern search on Ravelry, and came up with a winner. It was a shortsleeved sweater, so I thought it was something that I could actually wear in the season that I was knitting it.

Long story short, of course I finished it as soon as it was too cold to wear a short sleeved sweater.

I had my doubts already.

I wasn't super excited about the finished product, and chalked it up to finishing in the wrong season. A nagging feeling lingered in the back of my mind, and I slowly came to terms with the fact that I hated it.

But you know how a lot of times you look back on a pattern and you know exactly how you wish you could have done it? That's how I was feeling about this one. So in the middle of winter, I picked out a nice springy color in a light yarn, and went for it with modifications.

And here I am with a sweater just in time for spring! I'm learning.