Frogging
The subtle art of knowing when to give up as a knitter
Quitting. Abandoning. Moving on.
There are so many ways to say that you’re giving up on something, but to knitters it’s known as frogging.1
Frogging can be painful because it represents the undoing of hours of work, and for all of the time that goes into creating the fabric of your knitted garment, frogging it can take a matter of seconds.2 However, I’ve found it’s often for the best.
Right after I wrote my January Project Update last week, I realized that it was time to admit defeat on my Oaken Shawl by Tin Can Knits. I was not enjoying the process of knitting it not because of the pattern but because of the yarn. This black superwash wool (Drops Karisma) was squeaky, splitty, and generally not a particularly enjoyable knit for me. I also found that all of the shawl’s lace details were being lost in the black, which was a real shame because the shawl is simple enough that the detail should be a highlight.
And so I frogged three rows of lace and the entirety of the central garter stitch panel.
Gone baby gone.
Years ago, I might have been upset about this development because of all of the work I’d just undone. However, I’ve knitted garments for long enough to know that if something isn’t working or just doesn’t feel right, the likelihood that I will want to not only finish the garment but wear it is small. It is worth going back and fixing nagging things but, when the entire project is one big nag, it’s worth giving up and trying again.
Those of you who have been reading from the beginning will know that I am on something of a stash-busting mission this year, and knitting down this Drops Karisma was a big part of that. I was gifted it (at my request) years ago to make a jumper I fell out of love with. It has been languishing since, and I thought the Oaken Shawl would be the perfect project. Turns out, I was wrong.
So what happens next?
I am still making the Oaken Shawl and, you’ll be happy to hear, it will still be a stash-buster. I’ve wound up four skeins of Malabrigo Rios in Fresco y seco, which were part of a postal mishap and have been sitting unused in my crafting cabinet. I have knit with this yarn before,3 and I’ve always found it an enjoyable knit. I’ve also found that, for a superwash, it hasn’t grown on me as much as others. I plan on casting it on as soon as a couple of other projects are off of my needles, and I may end up making it my plane knitting for a trip soon.
Yes, that is yarn from the same order in two pretty distinct colors. (Malabrigo Rios is a hand-dyed yarn that has no dye lots.) The color variation means I’ll probably need to alternate skeins as I knit the Oaken Shawl.
As for the jumper-quantity of black Drops Karisma, my sister is buying it off of me so it will find a good home in one of her knits.
This gives me a tiny bit of joy—not only because of the term applies specifically to knitting—but where it comes from. It’s called frogging because you take your yarn and “rip it rip it” out to undo your work.
Unless you’re working with mohair or another fluffy yarn in which case your milage may vary. The last time I had to frog mohair, I had to recruit my husband to hold one of the balls of yarn so I could separate the fibers from each other.
I made Tin Can Knits’ Flax jumper out of the colorway Cereza and the Andra scarf by Melanie Rice out of the colorway Sunset.