Knitting

Knitting and I are not getting along lately, and so I am taking the day off. We’ll see how that goes…

First of all, there is the $%^&* skirt. It is a bit snug. It’s more than a bit snug. The swatch is lying in the bottom of my knitting basket, abandoned, lonely, and angrily shouting at me:

I told you so. I told you so. But did you listen??? No, you did not, and look where you are now.

I admit it. I did do everything involving the swatch correctly, but when it told me that I had one stitch too many over two inches, I scoffed and thought, “No big deal.” But it is a big deal over 205 stitches. Maybe I’ll try blocking it before I start the bottom ruffle, where the knitting becomes fun and interesting, using a lace pattern and hand-painted yarn.

But not today.

And the gorgeous raspberry colored yarn? That too is at the bottom of my knitting basket, shouting out, Make a decision already!

I meant to use it for the Glitzy Cat's Paw Wrap with more stitches so it would be wider. But after I made a bit of it, I just didn’t see the pattern as well as I would like because the yarn is so thin (lace weight). So I took that out and started on a Bit of Fluff wrap, using three times as many stitches so that it would be wider. But on two different sizes of needles the fabric was SO light and fluffy that I wasn’t sure it would stay on my shoulders; I’m pretty sure it would just lift up and float away.

Then I checked on Ravelry, entered the type of yarn and found over 500 projects listed. I checked through some of them, found a pattern I liked, downloaded it, studied it and decided it wasn’t something I would like to wear.

So I am stalled on that project as well, and that is it for today. No more knitting.

As a bonus to my day, I received an e-mail this morning from my nephew, who is getting married in November, and I thought the link he sent was for a wedding site. There was nothing in the message line, so I should have known better, but I opened the e-mail and the link anyway. The link took me to a pharmacy in Canada that has, so they claim, great prices on Cialis. Obviously some program has hijacked my nephew’s address book. Yay.

I’ll run the anti-virus program and the spy-bot program and then draft a letter of apology for anyone who gets an e-mail from me offering them a great deal on Cialis!

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And now for something completely different. In one of today’s NYT wedding announcements, the groom, in discussing the couple’s first meeting, said “It was not a good first impression,” adding that they were each dating other people then, and glad to be rid of each other.

All righty then.

Unfaithful Knitter

I admit it; I am fickle. I really, really intended to do no other knitting than the $%^&* skirt until I had finished the %$^&* skirt.

But at Thursday's Knit Night, another knitter was making a beautiful wrap from this Cascade 100% Baby Alpaca Lace yarn. (Made in Peru, color 1410) It is so soft, so delicate, so everything good that I was powerless to resist, and now I am starting a wider version of the Cat's Paw lace wrap that I finished just before I started the $%^&* skirt.

It will be nice to knit with something other than thick, stiff, waxed, colored dental floss for awhile.

Glitzy Cat's Paw Wrap

It is finished! I used just five skeins instead of six. It's long enough...

I am not going to block it because I like the texture. There is a blocked version at the LYS and it shows off the lace pattern better, but I like the texture more than the lace. So it really is finished.

Progress

I am now knitting with the fourth of six skeins I am using for my Glitzy Cat's Paw Lace Wrap, and suddenly I realize I no longer need the directions! As long as I keep my row counter going, I know what to do on each row. Granted, there are only three pattern rows, with seven-stitch repeats, and granted, for a more experienced knitter than I, this would not be a notable accomplishment. But for me? It's huge! It's Yay Me!

The wrap is going to be really long, and I may decide, if my enthusiasm flags, that five skeins will be enough. Too soon to tell.

Another accomplishment? I can pretty well tell what I have done wrong when I come across six or eight stitches where there should be seven. I've either knit two together when I shouldn't have, or have gotten a little carried away with the yarn-overs and thrown in a couple of extras. Both of those problems are easy enough to fix if I catch them time, and so far, so good.

So again...Yay Me!

Lace!

I have discovered that I love knitting lace, as long as:

a. the directions are written, not charted

b. the wrong side rows are all knit or purl, so I have a safe row to frog back to if necessary.

This pattern, the Glitzy Cat's Paw Lace Wrap, (available for free on Ravelry) fits my requirements! And I've had fun so far knitting it. The patterned rows are only three in number; the rest are purl. However, the designer did warn that it is a LOT of knitting, and she is right. I'm only into the third of six skeins - of wonderful Blue Sky Alpaca Silk (50/50) - and I'm starting to think there is no end in sight. But I want to wear it to a wedding on May 22nd, so I shall persevere.