It Ain't Just a River in Egypt

This is the progress I've made on my happy knitting.

What's that you say? Smaller than in the last picture? Ah, but that's only because you didn't see the part where I finished the whole raglan, separated out the sleeves, and tried it on. And it was too short. Way too short. Which I knew it was going to be several inches earlier. Not suspected, not feared: knew.

How, you ask? Well, first, because I calculated my row gauge and it was apparent to me that increasing every other round would give me a raglan only five inches deep. I even calculated that increasing every third row instead would give me a raglan that was the right depth. And then I started knitting and increased every other round anyway. My rationale was: "I always increase every other round for a raglan and it always comes out right. Even though, in this case, the numbers tell me I should increase every third round instead, I am going to disregard that, because I always increase every other round and it always comes out right."

So I knitted for a while. And it was pretty clear pretty early on that I was increasing at a rate that was going to get all my increases done well before the raglan was deep enough. But I thought, "Eh," and kept knitting.

When I had only two increase rounds to go, reality began to assert itself a little more forcefully, as I realized that the only person this raglan was going to fit would be someone under three feet tall. So for the last two increases, I increased every fourth round. Because surely that would make up for the entire rest of the raglan and magically add three inches, right?

Inexplicably, it didn't. But, hey, I'm a knitter. I can make it work. I continued to knit without increasing for an inch or two, until my raglan line stared to morph into something less identifiable and even I had to admit that it didn't look quite, um, right. At that point, I decided it was probably good enough, separated out the sleeves, and tried it on.

Yeah. Nothing like a fit test for a reality check.

I momentarily considered possible work arounds involving steeking and grafting and messing with the space-time continuum, and then I finally bowed to the inevitable and ripped. Hard.

It's a good thing I like the yarn, because it looks like we're going to be spending a lot more time together than I initially planned.

Strips

Yes, it's true: now I have strips for real. As opposed to the strips that existed only in my mind. But more than that, in some sort of knitting miracle, I didn't use any yarn. Well, not any real yarn, anyway. Somehow, I managed to do all the strip assembly using only overlooked partial balls of yarn that I didn't count in any of my optimistic calculations for the rest of the blanket. And this has put me right back where I thought I was before that awful moment when I pulled out squares when I should have pulled out strips: I may actually have enough ancient, discontinued yarn for the rest of the blanket! (For the record, this is the solid purple boucle yarn in the picture, not the Noro. I looked on Ravelry and found only three stashes with this yarn, and none in the color I need. Nor was there any available anywhere else online. So really, this is more of a drama than I usually choose to engage in.)

Onward, knitting soldiers!

And at the same time...

At this point in my knitting career, there are certain things I have learned and expect myself to remember and apply. Things like "knit a swatch." We all know that gauge lies, but failing to even make the effort is just throwing it in the face of the Knitting Goddess.

And "being careful not to twist." Unless you enjoy casting an entire sweater body's worth of stitches onto a circular needle and working four or so rounds before you discover that you have invented a wholly new--and probably impossible--geometric construct.

Oh, and "make a copy of your pattern" is always good to remember. I learned that one when I dropped my knitting magazine in the pool while we were on vacation, halfway through that complex lace sweater I was working on. Blowing a soggy magazine with a hair dryer for an hour does not guarantee a legible pattern at the end.

But by far the one that has burned me the most often--and the most viciously--is "and at the same time." You know what I mean: you're knitting along steadily, following the charts for cables or lace or colorwork, and all of a sudden you turn the page and read "and at the same time" and you feel all the blood drain out of your head as you learn that you should have started the decreases for the body 70 rows ago. And for a minute you wonder if anyone will notice that the fitted sweater you were knitting has morphed into a football jersey and that there is no left armhole.

We all know that you are supposed to read the pattern through from beginning to end to prevent this sort of thing from happening. In theory, at least, you will remember while you are knitting that there are some other things that are supposed to happen along the way--preferably before you knit those 70 rows that you're going to have to rip out. In my case, reality seldom conforms to theory, and so I have learned not only to read ahead, but to highlight the words "and at the same time" every time I come across them...even when I'm reading a book or newspaper, because you can just never be too careful.

So I am at a loss to explain how I could have forgotten, in working the right front of Spicy Tweed, that there is waist shaping that is supposed to be worked "at the same time." This failure is rendered more inexplicable by the fact that I had already worked this very same waist shaping on the back and the left front. But I never cease to amaze myself with my own ingenuity in finding ways to screw up my knitting. And so, gentle reader, instead of showing you two half-completed fronts of Spicy Tweed, I am showing you...nothing. You will have to take my word for it that I have been knitting diligently toward completing my WIP Cup project. I even knitted in the car today on the way to and from Julian with the kids fighting in the back seat and a hefty dog sitting in my lap. (The KH was driving. I'm a multi-tasker, but not quite that multi.)

Alas, tonight I will be ripping out all that knitting so that I can re-knit the waist shaping "at the same time."

Someone pass the chocolate and wine.

Sabotage

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Last night I was working my seven-hundred-and-ninety-three-bazillionth row of garter stitch while assembling my Log Cabin Afghan. I finished the row I was working, detached the needle tip that I was using so that I could attach it to the cable that was holding the square I planned to attach on next, capped the end of the working cable, and went to pick up the needle tip...which was gone. It was in my lap one second, and the next...gone.

I did what any rational person would do and carefully shook out everything in my lap. Not there. Then I stood up, shook out my skirt and shirt, checked the floor, lifted the bottom of the sofa slipcover, and ran my hand under the edge of the sofa. Nope. I took off the sofa cushion and looked under it. I slid my hand under a dog lying on the sofa. Still nothing.

I paused, took a deep breath, and carefully walked the family room floor, looking for the needle. I checked the coffee table. Twice. I checked the kitchen counter, even though I hadn't been in the kitchen. (What...isn't that where things magically turn up in your house?) I went upstairs and interrupted the KH on a phone call to ask him, with barely repressed irritation, if he had taken my needle tip to drive me around the bend, because it was working. (Hey, he does that sort of thing. It was a reasonable suspicion.) I'd have interrogated the kids, but they were all in the swimming pool and I was reasonably sure none of them were telekinetic.

I went back to the family room, checked the floor and the table again. I made the dog get off the sofa and ran my hands through his fur. (You never know.) I pulled everything out of the gap between the sofa and the side table. I lifted off the sofa cushion again and ran my hands through the dog hair, crumbs, and what I think was a half-eaten cookie (not mine, though--I don't leave half cookies behind). Nada.

I lifted the sofa skirt and looked under with a flashlight. I checked the dining room, where I haven't been in two days. I looked on top of the piano in the living room. I checked the entry table. I looked in the dryer, because all sorts of strange things turn up in there. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

I went upstairs to get a different needle tip, cursing all the while. I returned downstairs, sat down--and there was the missing needle tip, lying on the sofa. On the cushion I had already taken off the sofa twice.

I managed a deep breath and carefully set it on the side table, well away from the edge, feeling the need for a little break. I had a snack, checked my email, and ordered pizza. Then I picked up my knitting, reached for the errant needle tip...and promptly knocked it into the no man's land between the sofa and the side table.

I got off the sofa--again--and dug everything out of the gap--again. No needle tip. I closed my eyes and counted to ten. I ran my hand along the side of the sofa...and shoved the needle tip under the sofa so far I couldn't reach it.

I moved the side table (a huge, full steamer trunk), shoved the loveseat out of the way, and wrestled the nine foot sofa out of its spot to, finally, capture the needle tip.

After a little rest, I put everything back where it belonged, sat down again, and at last grafted the last square onto the strip I was finishing. I carefully wove in and trimmed all the ends. I laid it out on the table to admire it, and wondered why it looked...different. I pulled out the last strip and laid it beside the new one. All the squares were oriented the right way. The colors were in the right order. There were four squares in each...uh, oh. There were four squares in the first strip. There were five in the second. That last square I went to so much trouble to graft on? That square should have been the first square in the next row.

Sabotage. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Hear That?

That's the sound of the Knitting Goddess laughing.

This is where I ran out of yarn on the bind off. $#%&!

Coming Unraveled

I finished Clue 1 for Enchanted Wood a few days ago (ahead of schedule!), and since the next clue won't be out until the 22nd, I picked up my current pair of socks to fill the gap. I made such good progress that by the end of American Idol last night, I had two socks that looked like this:

All they needed was a bind off.

Ordinarily, I would have gone to bed then, but I was so close to the finish that I figured I'd just stay up a little later and get them bound off.

Does anyone else hear the Knitting Goddess cackling?

I got about ten stitches into the bindoff of the first sock when I discovered I had somehow dropped a stitch while binding off. I started tinking back. The bindoff I'm using involves knitting two stitches, slipping them back to the left needle, then knitting them through the back loops. This makes a nice, stretchy edge for toe-up socks. It is also absolutely impossible to tink back. After two hours and a raging desire for a bottle of Xanax, I had one sock ready for its bind off and one sock that looked like this:

Oh, yeah. It's not pretty, folks.

But for once, I'm proud to say, I recognized bitter reality while it was staring me in the face and bowed to the inevitable. I stuffed the sock back into its bag and went to bed.

F%#!

I've mentioned in the past my utter frustration with knitting instructions that read: "Work to correspond to left front, reversing all shaping." I mean, really. I'm paying for the damned pattern. Would it kill the designer to write out the directions for the right front? Does it really cost that much more to print an extra paragraph? Am I the only knitter on the planet who finds it confusing to change the ssk's to k2tog's and the "end of rows" to "beginning of rows", all the while keeping track of the number of rows and stitches and making sure to remember the "AND AT THE SAME TIME"'s?

I was planning to show you a Red Ruffles just about ready for its front edgings to be knitted on. I was working the post out in my head while whipping through the seams, considering pithy phrasings, imagining colorful expressions...when two inches from the bottom of the second side seam, something went awry.

I had already finished the right side, and it seamed together perfectly:

See that straight seam on the left, and the nice little curve on the right? That's how this cardigan is supposed to look. But as I reached the very bottom of the left side seam, the edges didn't match up. This seemed wrong to me, since I was careful about matching the seams, clamping them, and mattress stitching them up, but I figured I'd been distracted by one or more of the other inmates somewhere along the line and cheerfully pulled the seam to do it over.

Some time later, I reached the bottom two inches of the same seam again...and it still didn't match up. Now this time I was less than cheerful. I knew darned well I had matched the seams properly and sewn them accurately, and the other inmates were all in another room watching Spiderman. I pulled the seam partway out again and took another look.

This is the inside back:


See the straight edge on the right? That's where the side seam should be.

This is the left front:

See the nice curve on the left? That's the one that's supposed to be there. That one on the right? Not so much. And this is the result:

No way that seam is going to be straight. Ain't gonna happen. Because I somehow managed to knit curves into both sides of the bottom of this piece. And as this is a bottom up sweater worked in pieces, the only remedy is to take it apart, rip the entire left front, reknit it, and resew it to the rest of the cardigan.

Now, I would love to blame this little mishap on the instructions. I would love to heap invectives on the head of the designer for failing to write out the directions for both fronts individually. I would love to rant at the magazine editor for allowing such shoddy pattern writing. But the fact of the matter is...the front I screwed up is the one for which the directions are written out. The other one? The one that reads "work to correspond to left front, reversing all shaping"? That one I did perfectly.

F%#!

Lost and...

Found!

Phew!

For those who are wondering: car trunk. Where I'd already looked twice. Must be one of those space/time continuum things.

Cosmic Smack-Down

I knew I shouldn't have risked lace.

When the cast on couldn't discourage me, the ripping couldn't break my spirit, and the p5tog learned I was more persistent than previous evidence would indicate, the Knitting Goddess had to take a new approach. I discovered a whole new way to screw up lace.

I LOST IT!

Yep. I lost an entire shawl in progress, yarn and needles still attached. Somewhere between spinning group on Friday and sitting down to knit Saturday evening, it disappeared!

%&*$#@!

Knit, Rip, Repeat

You'll notice there is no picture of my progress on Swallowtail today. That is because, despite several hours of knitting, it looks exactly the same as yesterday. I knew I shouldn't have taunted the Knitting Goddess.

I happily knitted quite a few rows with apparent resounding success. I was even marveling over how quickly it was going. I was thinking, maybe I've finally kicked my lace knitting curse. And then I noticed I had one stitch too many at the end of a row.

Now, a sensible knitter would look at that, see that the error wasn't obvious, knit two together, and move on. At least, that's what I now think. At the time, I thought a sensible knitter would spend three and a half hours trying to track down the error, discover an extra yarn over, carefully tink back, realize the yarn over was actually two rows down, ladder down to the extra yarn over, remove it, work back up, discover that the stitches were far too loose, carefully tug the extra yarn from stitch to stitch, distributing the extra over the entire row, finally smooth out the work to see how it looked...and realize she had removed the wrong damned yarn over. Guess which sort of knitter I am?

Of course, when I moved on to the actual wrong yarn over, and attempted to repeat the procedure, a hole opened up in the space/time continuum and the universe collapsed in on itself, taking my knitting with it.

By the time I extricated it, half the shawl had been ripped back and my husband was giving me his wary lion-tamer look and suggesting I "just put it down...just for a little while. You can have it back tomorrow."

And now it's tomorrow, and I'm back to where I started yesterday. Somewhere in there, I must have crossed over the International Date Line.

Comfort Knitting

I haven't attempted the repairs on Sligo yet. It remains in a sad heap on my dining room table, right where I left it after taking pictures of its wounds last night. Thanks to Melissa, I now have a plan for how to proceed--a much better plan than sobbing hysterically and throwing it into the fire, but not quite so good as flying her out here to fix it. So far, though, I haven't been up to the task of facing my ugly mistake.

Fortunately, I have some comfort knitting on the needles.

I've been needing a lot of comfort. (It's a good thing I'm a knitter and not a drinker, ya know?)

I have the body of the Gathered Pullover finished up to the point where the fronts get divided to start the v-neck, which is shortly after the completion of the lovely center cable. See?

I really love this cable. I'm already making plans for how I can use it again. Heck, I might even knit this whole sweater again. I have some hand-dyed wool that would make for a nice winter version. (Although I've never actually knit the same project twice, not even my own designs, so it's not all that likely.)

I'm still loving the yarn, too. It's great for warmer weather and easy on the hands. The yardage is terrific, too. I've only used four balls to this point! I think it will end up taking about eight balls, at $1.99 a ball. And technically, this yarn came from stash, since I bought it without a specific plan for its use and had it for more than a week before I decided what to do with it--my two requirements for "stash" versus "non-stash" projects. Oh, hush. It works for me.