March 2010 – The Knitting Doctor

Blue

As I was rummaging through projects this morning to take photos, I noticed a striking similarity.

Really, I’m generally more eclectic in color choices than this would lead you to believe.

From the top: Baktus, in a lovely merino silk blend DK; Evenstar Mystery Shawl; and my latest spinning project. This is Yarn Chef fiber, I’m too lazy to get up and find the band, but it’s a silk blend of some sort. I’ll post more about it some other time.

I had a little dust-up with those two knitting projects the past few days, both stupid bone-head knitting mistakes. Making an error and having to tink back on a near-cobweb weight shawl is a little more understandable, at least. I got stuck on one patterned row where the stitch markers shifted one stitch sideways all along the row. On one repeat my count was off. I counted, recounted, tried to figure out where the error was, and finally tinked back the whole patterned row, then back the preceding plain knit row until I got to the repeat where the count was off (almost all the way around the row, I might add). By the time I got it tinked back, the count was now right. I counted, recounted, said a few choice swear words, and proceeded forward again, holding my breath and counting every single blasted repeat as I went. There was no error, I just think I can’t count. Or perhaps one of the stitch markers had migrated temporarily under a stitch. Or who knows, the Knitting Goddess might be trying to teach me a lesson. There wasn’t even bourbon involved in this one, I swear.

The blue scarf mistake is really bone-headed, though, almost enough so that I don’t want to put it out here for all of you to laugh at me. I figure it’s my civic duty, however. If you click on over to the pattern, you’ll see that, after the initial set up rows, it’s a simple 8 row pattern repeat. Simple, simple, simple. I got 24 repeats done correctly earlier this week, did a couple more repeats, then picked it up to knit again yesterday. The repeat basically is the lace yarn over row with 3 garter stitch ridges in between. On the last two repeats, there were only 2 garter stitch rows. Damn. Out it came, and I reknitted another two repeats, and noticed that I still only had 2 garter ridges. Out it came again. I’m embarrassed to say that I did this drill one more time before I figured out the mistake.

If you’ll look at the pattern, the last two rows, rows 7 & 8, are plain knit. Because of the way the pattern formats, it printed out on two pages, with rows 7 & 8 on the second page. You can see where this is going, can’t you? I did the first 24 repeats with all 8 pattern rows, then inexplicably just changed the pattern to a 6 row repeat, omitting those last 2 rows. I figured this out last night during about the quintillionth NCIS rerun I watched, at about 1 AM, and just cracked up. If I was Tony DiNozzo, Mark Harmon would have smacked me hard on the back of the head. It’s now fixed, and I’ve hand-written those last two rows on the first page so the pattern is all together, and hopefully I won’t do that again.

It’s late, I’m off to bed. I’ll try to find some other idiotic knitting goofs to regale you with next time!

Blogiversary!

And I almost missed it, imagine that. Actually I started a post earlier today. WordPress has been nagging me to upgrade to the newest version for a while now, so I went ahead and clicked the button that said “OK, already, upgrade me and quit bugging me”*. Then I went to the blog to check to make sure everything happened like it should, and on first glance, it did. Then I noticed that all the little things that you click on, like the words that should tell you to “comment here” were in German. Um, right. Turns out there’s also a new version of the theme that I use, which is by a German web designer. It ended up taking me the better part of a beautiful spring day to get it fixed. By that time I was done blogging.

Now I’m back, and no longer in a blog-induced snit. I think I’ve fixed stuff, but if you notice weirdness, let me know.

Six years. That’s how long I’ve been doing the knit-blog thing. I started a knitting journal on the computer several months prior to that, then just decided one day to do it. I have to say it’s been a nearly life-transforming experience. I’ve learned so much about knitting, about “computering”, and about writing. I’ve met some incredible people, both in real life and “imaginary”. I’ve shared food stories, travel stories, and just stories about life in general. You’ve all learned about my foibles, my inability to drink and knit at the same time, and about my inability to walk and drink at the same time. You’ve all perhaps perceived that I’m one of the slowest knitters on the planet, but that I make it up in enthusiasm for each new project.

I haven’t been posting much over the past year, but it’s been a challenging year of transition in many ways. Most of it is work-related, which I can’t really write about here. That has gotten immeasurably better with the new job, though it’s been a process getting there. I hope you will all stick with me, since I have no intention of giving up the blog just yet. I have a bunch of stuff to show you, both spun and knitted, so hang in there! Thanks for reading, commenting, and being friends!

*Well, it really didn’t say that, but you know what I mean.

Okayyyyyy….

I didn’t mean to just disappear like that for almost a month. You all must have thought that I ran off with a banjo player at Wintergrass. Let’s catch up, shall we?

Wintergrass was swell. It’s hard to pick my favorite artist of the festival, though the Swedish group Väsen was right up there. Not traditional bluegrass by any means, but great Swedish folk music. Dry Branch Fire Squad, a more traditional Appalachian style group, was another favorite. You can’t beat a guy who sings great gospel, tells great stories, and plays hambone like a pro. We don’t have tickets yet for next year, but we’ll surely go again.

We also did a quick three day weekend trip to Las Vegas a couple of weeks ago. Round about January it dawned on me that we had neglected to plan a winter vacation this year to someplace with sunshine. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, and if you tend a bit towards letting the undertoad get to you in the dark rainy months, this is not a good plan. So we did a little get-away. I even won a bit of money, though we undoubtedly spent it all on food. The best thing we did there was eat at Joel Robuchon’s French restaurant. Yum. Just yum. It was seriously one of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at.

Otherwise the winter’s been about work, knitting, spinning, reading. Work is going well, just the usual winter busy-ness. I’m still loving the not-so-new job.

Knitting: I still have pretty much the same projects going. I’ll try to update them here over the next week, but here’s a new one. I joined the Evenstar Mystery Shawl KAL on Ravelry, and I’m partly through the second of three clues. Of course you all know that photos of lace at this stage look like crap. This one’s a circular shawl, which I’ve never done before. There was some serious swearing that went on over the circular cast on, but after a couple of tries, I got it going.

The yarn is from Colourmart, and it’s a silk/cashmere blend, in a 28/2 light laceweight. The color is Aquamarine, and it’s pretty much finer than anything I’ve knit with. The finished shawl will have beads on the edging, and I’m planning on using clear silver lined beads. At least that’s the current plan.

OK, that’s enough for one post. I don’t want to overwhelm you. I have more to say about knitting and spinning, as well as an upcoming blogiversary, so stay tuned!