On being multicraftual

People who like crafts often like many different crafts. In the knitting and crocheting community, people who both knit and crochet are sometimes referred to as "bicraftual." Since I engage in other forms of crafting in addition to knit and crochet, I think of myself as "multicraftual."

There are many advantages to being multicraftual. You can use supplies and techniques from one craft to augment another. You can use a craft to make supplies for another craft. You can combine crafts in one finished work of art.

As far as I can tell, there is only one disadvantage to multicraftual status. I call it "I can make that" syndrome. I see something in a store or on a website, and it is lovely and I covet it, and it may be reasonably priced or it may be way out of my budget. But I think to myself, "I could make that," and I immediately start to think of ways I could improve upon it. Then, I will not buy the one I saw, even if it is reasonably priced and would take me hours of work to reproduce. If I think I can improve upon it, I will try to do so. Sometimes I succeed. More often, I spend a large amount of time and effort (and occasionally even money) thinking about the project, planning it, shopping for supplies for it, and then never get around to finishing it.

Lately, I have taken to asking myself whether I can truly do it better than the original and how long it would take me to do so. If I don't like the answers, then I am better off just buying it or forgetting about it entirely.

Designing my first sweater

I love cable knitting. I took to it immediately. After completing two projects, which used celtic knot designs, I decided I wanted to design something with a celtic cross on it. A sweater seemed perfect, and my dad seemed like the perfect person to knit for. He loves celtic crosses, and I know he will get good use from the sweater. Plus, he's a guy, which means no funky shaping is required on the sweater.

I looked on Ravelry for a pattern, but couldn't find one. I honestly don't believe there is any chance that I am the first person to design a sweater with a celtic cross motif on it. Maybe I messed up the search somehow. But in any case, I went ahead and drew up my own design.

I used graph paper to draw the cross first. I already knew a fair amount about celtic cross drawing from a book about the subject which I bought on a trip to Scotland. So that was the easy part (although it certainly impresses people). Then I knit a gauge swatch with the yarn I had chosen. I had knit a top-down sweater with raglan sleeves for my son, so I knew that the construction of such a sweater is very straightforward. I found a formula for the proportions of various parts of the sweater (neck, sleeves, cuffs, etc) based on the chest circumference, and I plugged in the gauge from my swatch and my dad's measurements to calculate the number of stitches I needed at each key point. A little more math to place the cross where I wanted it and figure out the rate of decreases on the sleeves, and I had a sweater pattern.

I am really impressed with how well it has turned out so far. I have done all but the sleeves. I have decided that I want to do them both at once on a long circular needle, a la magic loop. Only problem with that plan is that I don't have a long enough circular. But that just gives me an excuse to replace my current set of interchangeable needles with the Knitpicks options set I've been coveting for a while. As soon as it arrives, I will resume knitting, keeping my fingers crossed.