To Frog or Not To Frog

And a quick look into the term “frogging”

Last year I got on a bit of a sweater kick, after having tried my very first sweater pattern.  I made this one for my sister in law and her new baby – and both loved it!  Well, my sister in law did at least – not sure the baby loved being stuffed into a sweater. 

The Bloomsbury Sweater was the first that I ever tried – the pattern is very well written and easy to follow, so much so that I was able to achieve this as my first sweater attempt!  After the successful attempt of the Bloomsbury Sweater, I decided to use what I learned and try knitting my own sweater pattern, the Plain Jane Sweater.

Then I moved on and got creative and tried something new…which I am now currently trying to figure out whether I like or not.

Let’s pause here and define the knitting term “frogging”. 

The art of knitting, is to form a series of loops in different ways and in different patterns to create something, most often a garment or blanket.  When there is a mistake made in one of the projects, you need to undo the stitches, often working back across many, many stitches to fix the error.  Or in my current case, you may decide to undo the whole thing.

Another word in knitting for “undo”, is “rip”.  When you are undoing stitches, we often say you are “ripping it”.

IE: “Rip it, Rip it” sounds like “ribbit ribbit” and that’s how we get the term Frogging.

Back to the sweater in question: 

I’m not in love with the way this sweater is shaped, but I’m also not loving the idea of ripping out hours and hours of work.  So I posted the question in the Knit and Chat Facebook group. 

Many knitters have supported me in this sweater and said that they really like the look of the pattern.  A few have even asked for the pattern, which adds frustration because I lost the pattern notes that I was writing when we moved.  I’ve put this sweater away for quite a bit of time and have been putting off this decision until yesterday…when I started on the first sleeve.

I’m opting to add a simple sleeve to see how the sweater will look when it’s finished, and then I will make the overall decision whether to frog it or keep it.  I have a feeling that I’ll end up keeping it in the long run but this one has been challenging. 

While challenging, it hasn’t been completely negative.  The Braided Beginnings Sweater (as I’ve started to call it) has renewed my confidence and shown me that I can try to make my own patterns, and that it’s OK if they don’t work out. 

It’s shown me that if they don’t work out, there is a creative challenge in finding a different way to make it work.  The Braided Beginnings Pattern, has also shown me that I have learned to read my knitting and given me the solace that if I do finish it, I can go back and rewrite the pattern just by looking at the construction of the sweater.

Most exciting is that it’s given me the confidence and inspiration to try a few new patterns.  One of which is on my needles right now, and a few others are rattling around in this wild head of mine.  Thanks for coming on this journey with me!