Am I Just Wasting My Time Here?

The big question in my mind at the moment is am I just wasting my time here? I am still knitting little swatches, poring over stitch patterns, and charting them to see how they will work together. I am not sure if I have a winner yet.

This is my latest attempt. I hoped to accomplish a couple of things here. The first thing is to see how the elements I had tested in my first swatch would work out with the shaping I plan to use. This is to get the visual effect of the stitch patterns when they occur next to each other. The second thing is to figure out how the charting would work with the increases.

Here is my first swatch I knit to get a feel for the three patterns. You notice in this sample, I tried knitting garter ridges between the patterns. I didn’t like that for a couple of reasons, but mainly, it was awkward to do because all the stitch patterns begin on wrong side rows. It is more complicated to get the garter to work nicely when I change colors on the wrong side rows.

There is a theme going on with all three of the patterns I picked out. They all have slipped stitches and begin on the wrong side. I like the idea of that but it is a bit of a bugger to chart. I wonder at this point if it is worth pursuing or am I headed back to the drawing board? I have already invested quite a lot of time to get to this point and I am still not sure if I love it. I have two other rough ideas I want to explore. One will be the bottom stitch pattern from the above picture with a cable element. The other is the lace pattern from my last post.

In other news, I have finished the Cables and Lace Blanket. I wasn’t able to make it quite as large as I wanted because I ran short on yarn. It is a nice size despite that and I have been enjoying it on the chilly mornings while doing my reading with my coffee.