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I’ve been knitting again, and the ball of yarn from which I’m knitting (ball, not skein) developed some tangles in its innards (it’s a commercially wound ball; they do this sometimes.) It was necessary to partially eviscerate the ball (reading into the hole and feeling around and then pulling a hunk out) to untangle it. This is remarkably like what’s gone on with the story the past few days, and is a clear sign that my sudden urge to start knitting again was connected to more than hand pain–my brain needed the tactile and musculo-skeletal input.
As of noon today, several (but not all) of the tangles have loosened up enough to see what’s going on, and two have been completely untangled and laid straight. One nasty little knot is still resisting coming loose. I’m not yet ready to go back to the actual text (I’m writing in another file and that’s going very rapidly) but should be on it within a week, if it’s like other tangles in the past.
When untangling yarn, the mass of now-loose yarn in your lap can obscure the work and the needles and remaining problems…that’s where the book is right now. The stuff I’ve just “found”–the untangled yarn of the story-world–is heaped up around and in front of the story itself. I need to get it all neatly wound onto bobbins or spindles or other ways of keeping it organized so that when I’m back on book, it will flow freely when it needs to enter the pattern. (The story, unlike this knitting project, has many many strands of varied colors and textures, which form the more complex pattern of the whole. This is a simple blanket, that will have only two stitches to vary it into two patterns, garter and stockinette. The story is…full of cables, honeycomb, diamond, and many other stitch types, plus the varies yarns.)
But was very glad to get some of the tangles undone…it’s looking more doable now.
Comment by RichardB — May 5, 2011 @ 2:13 pm
Interesting: I often have the same “untangled yarn” phase when working on a software project.
Comment by Kerry (aka Trouble) — May 5, 2011 @ 4:43 pm
Hm…Maybe I should switch to yarn – I always thought of messy software in terms of spaghetti.
Comment by Rune Ulset Furberg — May 6, 2011 @ 12:27 am
Glad to hear Achrya has loosened her hold on both your knitting and the story, at least for the time being. 🙂
Comment by Jenn — May 6, 2011 @ 9:13 am
Thought of you when I read this just now:
http://news.yahoo.com/comics/frazz
Hope it makes you smile
Happy knitting.
Comment by elizabeth — May 6, 2011 @ 9:27 am
I’m not sure Achrya’s given up on my knitting…pulled a doozy of a mistake last night and now have stitches to carefully take apart and reassemble. Failure of 3-D imagination until I saw the result (cable needles allow you to pick up the work in the wrong “side” orientation after it’s been folded into a knitting bag.)
Comment by elizabeth — May 6, 2011 @ 9:28 am
It did. And I remember having “rider’s block” when I just could not get the hang of a particular move.
Comment by arthur Piantadosi — May 6, 2011 @ 5:55 pm
This is Arthur. For some reason, your talk of plot threads made me think of the Gordian Knot. Alexander took the easy way to solve the problem. I certainly have learned a LOT since I started putting up music and poems on Youtube, and audiobooks on the site Librivox. I have way more respect for both authors, musicians, and any sort of performance artists. . .
Comment by Keenan — May 12, 2011 @ 1:23 am
It always seemed interesting to me that knitting and crocheting were just fancy knot making methods. The skein of yarn starts out as this delicate, overlapping pattern which is undone and transformed in to large and elaborate knot.