Hoisted on my own cable-needle petard

Most of my spare time recently has been taken up with knitting for the Mumsnet blankets. I'll post about what I've done when I can be arsed later, because we've got a deadline to get them in the post.


The first blanket is for the family of a poster called WubblyBubbly, who sadly died of breast cancer just a few weeks ago. Before she died she had a sort of dream or vision, that after we die we all 

'go back to earth in a million different places to sit on top of mountains, become snow flakes and grains of sand. We become a part of earth. We really never leave.' 

Ah-ha, I thought, I could pick a pattern for a square bearing that concept in mind. I'm knitting using wool donated by another Mumsnetter in a lovely soft light green colour, which would suit a earth/trees/growing/cycle of life kind of theme. I found this pattern:

Rather lovely, no? And the intertwining could represent family, or the connectedness of all of our lives, or offshoots/ new growth (her son is five), etc. etc. All good. 


I checked in The Book - the section on cabling is less than a page. Pah, easy. I had a quick practice - my cable needle kept dropping out , but it was no big deal to shove it back in. Another skill ticked off. Let's look at this pattern then.




Teeny, tiny problem. The pattern isn't a 'k15 p8 k10' type, oh no, rather, it looks like this:

No, I haven't a fucking clue either. But hey, there's an explanation, how hard can it be? I'm an intelligent person. (Husband: 'No, you're a very intelligent person.' Not really true, but bless.)


So I started trying to write it out by hand. The first thing I notice is that there are a lot of rows, and a lot of stitches in a row. I double-check the pattern (yes, yes, I should have done this before) - it's a 9" square. Too big (we need 6" squares). So, not only do I need to translate it into KnittingBasic, I need to reduce it by a third, all over. Ok, I could trim a bit off the top, quite a bit from the trunks, a bit from the ground... not so much from the sides. Definitely not a third.


Time for a re-think. Back to my beloved but not so much today Ravelry and I found this pattern instead:

Not the whole dress, obviously, just the tree bit. Twining branches; growth; past; present; future: tick, tick, tick. It's a bit narrow this time, but no problem, I can add some at the sides - easy-peasy because that would just be plain. Little bit of cabling - I've got that sussed. 
But...

I'm angry just looking at that image. Again, I spent too long a while trying to translate it. Plus, I think there's a mistake - after knitting a few rows, it's all just bumps. There's no relief pattern. Ok, I adjust the pattern and voila! a trunk is appearing. But if that part of the pattern was wrong, what about the rest? This makes me then question what I've translated so far, so I correct.


And then undo a few rows, and re-correct, and try again. 


And again.


And then I give up in a fit of pique. I can't do it, I can't work it out, I am beaten. Cabling is NOT easy, and above all I can't translate graph patterns for toffee. [stamp of foot]


This is pretty typical of my approach to many things in life. I get a few basics down, skip the bits that look boring and jump to the parts that look more interesting. And guess what - it turns out those boring bits were perhaps quite essential, and that you have to master those FIRST before moving on. I did read the not-quite-a-page on cabling carefully, but hey! as there are entire books just on cabling on Amazon, perhaps it's not quite as simple as The Book suggests.


The stampy-foot feeling is pretty typical for me as well. It's not so much a 'But it's not MY fault' feeling as a 'Fine! FINE! Well I might as well JUST GIVE UP THEN' feeling. But... this time, I sucked it up instead. I'm not knitting this for fun. I'm not knitting this for practice, or to improve my skills, or because it's therapeutic (those are all fortunate side-effects). I'm knitting this to help - hopefully - a family who have lost someone they love, and for a little boy who will grow up without a mother. My son is five too and it's heartbreaking to think of what Wubbly's son must be going through.
So I have another look on Ravelry, and I find this:

Perfect. And in a normal pattern.


Knitting eh? It's a metaphor for life, innit.