please make it go away

To the naked eye the spousal sweater looks finished. Which would be a good thing as it was to serve as a combined Valentine's Day (3 1/2 months ago) and birthday (two days ago) present.



But then one flips it inside out and the true horror is revealed.



No, it's not finished. Not by a long shot. No sir.

I am forcing myself to complete this thing before starting anything new. If I feel really desperate I am permitted to work on the various works in progress that litter my bedroom. There is the lacy rib sock -- yes, still the first one, don't tell me, I know -- and the grocery sack shawl. There's the crocheted blanket sitting in a basket beside me, but it is 32 Celsius at the moment and I don't fancy a heap of itchy acrylic in my lap just now. And there's a woolly sweater lurking in a box somewhere but that strikes me as a fall project. It can cool its jets for a few months. I'm sweatered out.

Meanwhile, once this sweater has been delivered to its rightful owner, who I dearly hope will love it more than I do right now, I intend to go on a charity knitting binge. I fear there will be quite a few items in green, beige and off-white in my immediate future.

groggy ramblings on current projects

First, I must beg your indulgence. I am having one of those days when one feels as though one is watching ones life on a tv with bad reception. Please expect and excuse some meandering.

The good news is that I have resumed work on two stalled projects: the lacy ribbed sock in Opal Petticoat and the Shetland lace Faroese shawl. I have a problem with the juxtaposition of the two island groups in the shawl but I suppose I shall have to learn to live with it. Let us hope that the Shetlands never go to war with the Faroe islands. I'm really not sure what could happen if the lace sections decided to part company with the Faroese shaping but I suspect it would be bloody.

To continue: the bad news is that despite my noble intentions of offering the first photographic evidence of these two projects, my camera batteries are deader than doornails (I am sure there's a more original simile out there somewhere but, you know, the reception is bad today). Well, to be honest, six of the eight of them are dead and the other two have gone AWOL.

I am using a pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks and have come to the conclusion that patterns make me stupid. Stupider. I usually knit plain socks for which I no longer need a pattern (it only took me about two dozen identical socks to figure out that I was doing the same thing every time). Now that I am following a pattern again, I have become dependent on the book to spell everything out for me. Each time I scamper back to the pattern it is with the knowledge that I'm looking up something I could have figured out if I had been working this out for myself. But when you're following someone else's directions there's always the possibility that she's going to throw you a curve and have you do something bizarre whose purpose will become clear once you get halfway through the toe. So a slave to the pattern am I, following every instruction to the letter, consulting diagrams, counting stitches. And if anyone can tell me why I have developed a mental block regarding yarn overs on this sock it would be much appreciated. I don't remember ever having this trouble before. I have to figure out which way to wrap the yarn every flippin' time.

The shawl, which is knit in a beigey-brown Shetland wool, looks vaguely like a paper grocery bag and feels like kitchen twine. I wanted it to be rustic, and that it is. I am placing my faith in the gods of washing and blocking.

And what of the spousal sweater? Why, it is still sitting in a basket waiting for the elves to swing by.

It was fun, it was easy, and it's done.

After my earlier angst over the rippled pattern that wasn't working, in my humble and unbiased opinion this sucker didn't turn out half bad.



My only complaint is that it's on the small side, 28" square, and I did end up with enough yarn that I could have done a wider border. Next time I'll do a few extra rows. I adapted the pattern from Lion Brand's Happy Baby Blanket, but I used Bernat Baby Coordinates Sweet Stripes which eliminated the need for colour changes, and I cast on an extra 10 stitches on each side of each square to compensate for the thinner yarn.

And now it's back to the crochet blanket. I might need to toss a few small knit items in there to relieve the tedium. That's permitted. I read the rule book.

I rise to the challenge

Yesterday I attended my first monthly meeting of the charity knit and crochet group that I have recently joined and was amazed at the number of crocheters sitting around me! I was a rabid crochet fiend until I was in my twenties, at which point I gradually morphed into a rabid knitting fiend, in part because all the other crafty folk I knew were knitters. Seeing all the crocheting has awoken the crochet fiend within, and I have started a crochet baby blanket. Or perhaps a lap blanket. It's a rather uninspiring steel blue so I shall allow the wise ladies at the group to decide whither to send it. And now that I've used the "c" word six times in one paragraph perhaps I should move on.

I did not contribute my donation. I had knit a layette set, which can be found elsewhere on this blog if you have nothing else to do, washed it and proudly packaged it in a sandwich bag. Then I got to the meeting room and found that others had donated garbage bags full of work. I felt quite inferior and kept my puny contribution hidden in my knitting bag. And then one lady announced that she and her sister had produced 132 hats in the last month. I'm going to have to up my game.

I have to miss next month's meeting because the younger daughter has a gymnastics meet that day. But you just wait until September. They're going to have to bring in a semi to haul away my donation.

awaiting elves

I've been pretty good about not starting any new projects, but there's an outside chance that it's because I haven't actually picked up my needles lately.

I haven't been working on the lacy sock but I do believe the elves have stopped by. The stitches appear to have straightened out a bit. Or maybe I'm just less critical with a few days' distance.

All knitting is finished on the spousal sweater and am waiting for the elves to sew it up. I have less faith that they'll help out with this one.

The yoke sweater is now in an endless stretch of stockinette -- here we go again -- that is great for TV watching. That is not to suggest that I've been working on it while watching TV but, you know, if I tried it, it would work.

I tried to work on the baby blanket during the daughter's gymnastics meet last Saturday but was too nervous and sweaty-handed. I expect I'll be getting some if it done on Sunday at the charity group meeting. Daughter won a ribbon on bars, by the way. We were inordinately excited. There was some screaming and other undignified behaviour.

Faroese shawl is buried in the Rubbermaid box where it has been cowering since I got mad at it for some reason. I don't remember why. The husband insists that if I don't remember why I'm mad at him then the anger is no longer valid, but I can use that sentiment alone as a reason to stay mad. I don't know if any of this applies to shawls.