Tuesday, December 02, 2008

Substitute

The iPod is an invaluable companion on a long drive, and I had it firing for my trip home Monday. Nevertheless, all those choices can be crippling, and sometimes I don't particularly want to listen to music. Hearing someone talk can make the time pass faster than grooving to songs or albums, especially if one has a vague sense of how long they are.

For a change of pace I turned to podcasts. I'm terrible about listening to those I have set up to download. As I scrolled through them, I noticed that many podcasts were recorded last year and either haven't updated since or weren't being downloaded because I haven't cracked their proverbial cases.

I selected some knitting podcasts to tide me over during the last couple hours. One was a little too estrogen-infused or poetry reading-like at times for me to bother with it again, but at least it served its purpose of engaging me while I sliced through Ohio's flat countryside.

Another featured an interview that was more diverting. The author claimed that 80% of patterns are knit in the same color as the depicted FO. Aside from wondering how such a claim can be calculated, I pondered whether I do this.

I can think of one instance when I've copied the colors, but more often than not I don't pay much attention to recreating the photographed project's palette. I have a fairly strong sense of the color or colors I want to use, perhaps before even picking the project. I substitute yarn a high percentage of the time too. How about you?

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4 Comments:

At 11:06 PM, Blogger donnadb said...

I often want to use the colors specified in the pattern. But I just can't! I feel guilty just thinking about it, like I'm copying rather than creating!

 
At 11:11 PM, Blogger smariek said...

I seem to do better with audio books on my iPod. I can't seem to sync up the iPod to iTunes for those Podcast downloads; I always have one or the other launched/connected, but rarely both simultaneously.

I don't make a point of copying the same colors in other patterns.

 
At 8:23 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

It depends on how quickly the project must be knit. :) One where I don't have the time or luxury to bargain shop for a cheaper alternative ends up in the same yarn the pattern calls for. Albeit, in those instances it's probably a different color.

In other garments I sometimes want to knit it in the color shown only because man do I love that color. Green, red, orange...

I will be working on a sweater soon that I loved as is but the yarn I found to substitute only came in a few colors (on sale) so I am using a different color (purple) rather than the green (love) depicted.

 
At 11:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The only project I ever knitted in the colors depicted in the pattern was a Christmas scarf in the traditional red with white fun fur on the ends. And I later adapted that to school colors for the college students on my list.

I almost always start with a color in mind first, without regard to the depicted FO.

 

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