I tweet a lot at night when most of my twitter-friends* are quiet, so I was under the impression I was tweeting into the wind at night.  I assumed people were catching up with my nighttime crafting when they log into twitter in the morning.

Wednesday last week, I had an epiphany about the bust decreases and popped onto twitter to say:


After I tweeted, I went back to watching something On Demand while I swatched my new decrease (yep, I mis-tweeted it as an increase).  When I popped back on twitter about 40 minutes later, I had *6* reply tweets, and I think this one sums them all up nicely:


I literally laughed out loud.  I had a feeling that people might think I'd lost my mind, but the tweets confirmed that people might start seriously considering an Unraveling Intervention.  Ha!

Hopefully you aren't too upset by this turn of events.  Or, if so, you took my advice and had a seat. :)

But after looking at the photos I took for my last Peacock Sweater, I just didn't like the way the decreases looked.  They totally shattered the beautiful wavy lines of the pattern.

Here is the old version of the decrease.  I didn't like how there was a straight vertical line in the middle with straight lines crossing it.  And then the top of the motif under the decrease is stretched  and distorts the whole motif.

I knew there had to be a better way.  I did some sketching of the motif ovals.  Just thinking about the ovals and how they could fit together to increase and decrease without compromising their edges helped me come up with a new chart.

Here is the new decrease.  I did three swatches before I came up with this one.  I never would have come up with this originally, because it goes against my intuition to have so many holes in a row.  There are 5 holes stacked on top of each other in the decrease.  But they totally work because the integrity of the wavy sides of the motifs aren't broken.

My eye is totally tricked and I don't even see the decrease.  Is it just me?

Well, OK, I see it here, but I think it looks like a part of the design and not a weird anomaly.  There is a little bit of pulling on the edges of the two motifs that border the 5th (bottom) hole in the decrease.  I tried a couple tricks to smooth that out, but they only made the motifs look more angled.

I've made some progress since these pix.  I'm now to row 37 of 52.  I'm hoping to finish the body this week.

I also reworked my charts for the hip increases so they match my new paradigm of motif integrity.  I'm really excited about this.  I feel like I've learned a new skill for modifying crochet stitch patterns.

I've also learned (for the millionth time) that I find things when I look at photos of my work that I don't see with my eyes.

As a craftsman, the moments when I feel like I've made something that is excellent in its technical execution *and* aesthetically pleasing are, well, it's hard to describe.  Those moments are both exciting and calming.  I'm pleased with my work and ready to move to the next challenge.

And you are here to witness that I'm not magically gifted.  I do a lot of work.  And, you don't even see all of the work I do.  Maybe I'm magically gifted with the desire and determination (stubbornness?) to create something awesome, but making awesome things doesn't just come naturally or easily.

This is reminding me of the art school rules I read at the Sister Corita exhibit at MOCFA when I was at Craft Bar last week.  Here's the one I'm thinking of:

Rule 7
The only rule is work.
If you work it will lead to something.
It's the people who do all of the work all of the time
who eventually catch on to things.

I feel a little weird when I say things like this.  You know, put my sense of accomplishment out here on my blog, because someone who doesn't crochet, or who crochets and just doesn't like this sweater, could look at this half-completed sweater and snort, "Haha. Oh, what a craftsman.  Riiiiiight."  And to that, I say, "Haters gonna hate."

* You can totally be one of my twitter-friends.  Follow me @futuregirlcraft.  Send me a DM so I know you're not a bot, and I'll follow you back.  xoxo!