Oh Crap – The Knitting Doctor

Alrighty, then

A Tale in Four Photos

Ouch. Yes, that was a painful decision. In case you can’t tell what that blob is, it’s the Vanilla Sweater, which I started LAST FALL. I got it almost to where it was in that first picture and decided that it was too snug, and that I needed to do some body increases. Which would have been fine, except I was almost ready to start the bottom hem. I put it in a bag and hid it, like you do, thinking it would fix itself.

Right. Fast-forward to earlier this month. I hauled it out, tried it on again, because, you know, it COULD have been fixed in the back of my closet.

Nope. I went ahead and did another several inches, adding some increases, because throwing more knitting at bad knitting will turn it into good knitting.

This morning I sucked it up, and with the help of a friend, took the whole thing back to just after I started knitting the body, and I’ll do it properly.

It takes two, indeed.

I should just go back to bed

I woke up this morning after having a bad dream. I occasionally still get work dreams even though I’m retired. Usually, they involve being forced to go back to work in the hospital. Whoever is in charge gives me more patients to see than anyone else, and I can’t figure out how to get around the hospital or make the computer system work. (OK, that last was a reality most days at work when I was still doing hospital work.)

In this morning’s dream, I wasn’t feeling well, and finally keeled over and passed out on the floor in the middle of a busy clinic. Nobody paid any attention, just kept walking around me and going about their business.

On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t go back to bed.

Once I was awake, I looked at the news. The first piece I read was about how Republicans all over the country are targeting Dr. Fauci, to the point where he is getting death threats, as is his family. There was a link to an attack ad by some lunatic running for governor in Nebraska. I made the mistake of clicking on that link. You should too, so I’m not alone in my misery.

The next article I read is about the “big one” that is due to hit the Pacific Northwest any time now. It outlined in detail what will happen to all the people living on the Washington coast when the 9.0 earthquake hits us, as it eventually will.

Nice. Go back to bed, dream about work. Stay awake, brood about an earthquake and the massive wall of water loaded with houses and boulders headed my way.

I decided to get up and distract myself by reading knitting blogs. How depressing could that be?

And then straight away I dumped my cereal and milk on the kitchen floor.

I was planning on doing a few rows on that lace shawl that I’ve been working on forever. After the way the day has started, that is not happening.

134 Rows

That’s how many rows I have left to finish this shawl. Of course I currently have 425 stitches on the needles, and that increases to 693 by the end of the shawl.

I have 2 balls of this yarn, about 1700 yards total. The shawl takes about 1600 yards. Plenty, right?

I went looking for the second hank of this just now. It doesn’t appear to be in any of the usual hiding places.

I can see a house tear-apart in my future. This is not helping the migraine that I woke up with today.

Need Advice

OK, all you lace knitters. I need an opinion here. I started that lovely Cathedral Stole. Did the provisional cast on, started the first half. Got about 8 or 10 rows done, thought, hmmm, needle maybe too big. Instead of tearing it out, I got the second hank of yarn and knit a swatch a needle size down, and then washed and blocked it.

I decided I liked the original needle version. Kept knitting, now I have almost 20 rows done. Hmmm. Needle may be too big. Denial is a wonderful thing. Here are some photos.

That’s the first few rows on the larger needle.

That’s my washed and blocked swatch on smaller needles.

And that’s even more rows on the bigger needles. I think I know what I need to do here. I just think those bigger holes look sloppy. Grrr. Oh well, it’s not that many rows, and it’s a pretty easy pattern.

As promised here is a better photo of my Tequila Sunrise. The cocktail is just what you might think.

At least the tequila might make the ripping out easier.