I tink, therefore I knit

Isn't this supposed to be the other way around? I mean, I'm no expert, but I've come pretty far in my knitting in the few years that I've been doing it, and I'm pretty sure that what I'm doing lately is the inverse of what knitting is supposed to be.

Don't get me wrong. I'm well acquainted with knitting back. Tinking is a skill I developed and honed to a high level quite early in my knitting experiences. I know this method inside and out, backwards and forwards one might even say. I've even developed a somewhat zen relationship to tinking; knitting is about the process, right? If I didn't love the process itself I wouldn't be doing it, so knitting back just gives me a chance to knit more (ok, so I'm grasping). But there's something about the Annie Modesitt silk ribbed lace corset pattern that has me hitting new all time highs in my personal tinking records. I love, love, love the pattern, love the garment that seems to be resulting when I am knitting forward:

(pictures to come - I'm new to this blogging thing)

So what it is about this project that has me knitting back at a rate that makes me feel as if I've already knit this thing a dozen times over? In fact, if the tinking and the knitting forward were added up, I'd probably have 20 or more of the gorgeous items in my wardrobe. It's not all that complicated a pattern, there are charts as well as written directions so you can work either or both ways, and I'm using my lovely little stitch markers religiously. So what is my problem?

Sadly, my relationship with swatching is not nearly so evolved and intimate. If it were, that would no doubt have prevented me from knitting the beginnings of this pattern three times over in three successively larger sizes. But that's for another post.