Begonias have Stubby Petals

Once upon a time, when the internet was new and shiny, there was a recipe site where people put up recipes, and other people made the recipes and commented on how they turned out, or what they added to improve the recipe in their eyes. Over time, certain commenters became a bit of a family joke. “I made this peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but I swapped out the peanut butter for mayo and the jelly for mustard, and at the last minute stuck in some ham and cheese I had on hand, and it was delicious!” I’m sure it was, but at that point were you really making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?

This happens in the knitting world too, and because there are no Knitting Police (or Food Police, for that matter), Ravelry adapted itself to let you include on your project page all the things that inspired your creativity. “I was inspired by this pattern, but I used this collar, and this stitch pattern, and cropped it and made it a cardigan.”

Modifications open up our creativity. Some are corrective - a line or stitch was left out and not caught by the pattern editors; some are adaptive - I’m never going to k3tog in worsted weight cotton, too painful!; some are preference - I like my way of making buttonholes; some are exploratory - what would happen if I did THIS?

And some make me laugh. Not get annoyed - life is immensely too short to get annoyed about what other people are making. But some knitters comment on their pattern changes as if they were making corrective changes without ever noticing what the designer was trying to do.

Case in point: I’ve been making a shawl with the pattern name Begonia Swirl. It was easy to see where the swirl came in, as it increases in a spiral pattern. And clearly the flowery lace edging was where the begonia came in. Having never seen a begonia, I was all about checking them out at a recent visit to a botanical garden. “Ah,” I thought. “Cute little stubby petals.”

When I got to the end of the shawl I discovered it called for an unusual-to-me bind off, and I checked in to see what help other Ravelers could be. The first thing I discovered was the surprising number of knitters who couldn’t understand why the designer had failed to bring the petals to a point, and their advice on how to do so. I admired their Tulip Swirl results, and investigated further.

Many had made the adaptive/preference choice to avoid crochet as a blot upon needlecraft, and had lots of advice on what bind off to use instead. But by now I was firmly on the side of the designer, so I watched the recommended video and read the notes of people who tried it, and finally, tried it myself. Delightful! (But unblocked. Also, no bears were harmed in the taking of this photo.)