revival of a UFO

It would appear that I cannot read. I thought I was in receipt of an email notifying me that my yarn had been shipped, but it now appears that it was merely advising that the yarn is going to be shipped at some point in the not-too-distant future. So my sexy needles are going to have to cool their heels while I (drum roll please) finish a UFO!

Yes, I have resurrected the long-neglected Faroese shawl.



You may recall that this is the project that reminds me of a crumpled grocery sack crossed with a tangle of kitchen twine. In my more generous moods I call it "rustic". The picture isn't very clear but it is mostly garter stitch with a panel of Shetland lace down the back, and in the near future there will be more lace along the bottom. It will look decent when it's done and blocked, I have every confidence.

once again awaiting yarn

There are those who would describe me as impatient.

Waaay back when, probably about six weeks ago, I ordered needles and yarn to knit the Magickal Earth shawl from A Gathering Of Lace. Some might have noticed that I've done considerably more babbling about this project than actual constructive work on it. I can now blame this on a lack of materials. Previously it would probably have fallen under the umbrella of "all talk and no action".

I should mention in fairness to the vendor that I had asked them to hold the shipment until after my vacation at the beginning of July. Shortly before the end of my vacation I received notification that they had shipped the whole deal. The needles arrived yesterday. No yarn. The needles (Addi Turbos, no less) are perched alluringly on my desk, right in front of me. Every now and then I catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of my eye and I think the tips might be doing one of those little leg kick things that exotic dancers do. But no yarn. I suppose it is drifting around a post office somewhere, fantasizing about those sexy needles.

I want my yarn.

Meanwhile, I'm doing more preemie hats. And I actually pulled the good ol' Shetland/Faroese shawl out of the bin for three rows. But it's really just the knitting equivalent of thumb twiddling.

no knitting content here

You might see a title below this post reading "Things I do not like:". If you do see it, please give it the finger on my behalf. Through an inexplicable series of Random Acts of Stupidity, I accidentally posted this title sans text, tried to stop posting, tried to delete, nothing freakin' worked. Sometimes it appears to be there; the last time I looked it was not and I pray that it has slithered back to the netherworld. It is akin to the phantom stitch I encountered in my sock last week. It doesn't exist, yet it is there. Sometimes.

Now, on to the business at hand which, I believe, involved Things I do not like:

1. Phantom posts! I just discovered that.

2. Crocheting dishcloths with cotton worsted and a teeny hook. It takes forever and is nasty on the hands. And I don't even know if there's any advantage to bulletproof dishcloths.

3. Crocheting in general. Mind you, that's just a mood thing. I'm fed up with the dishcloth but am sure I will hate crochet less once it's done.

4. Having 40,000 projects (approx.) piled up and not having enough time to get to half of them. Not to mention the laceweight that's still in the mail and the Sock Of The Month kit that arrived yesterday, much to my surprise. Out of the half-dozen or so sock kits I've received so far, I have completed -- let me see -- one.

And what is our obligatory knitting content today, you ask? Why, there is none. I've been stuck in crochet dishcloth hell for so long that I've forgotten what knitting is.

reporting from the sandy shores of Georgian Bay

Please congratulate me. I am at the cottage, seated before a computer I do not usually use for blogging, and get this: I remembered my Blogger username and password on the first try. Forget the knitting, this is probably my biggest accomplishment of the year.

When not engaged in incredible feats of memory, I have been busying myself with Haphazard Knitting. I cannot really define that except to say that when I get home I will be most likely be busying myself with a whole lot of Finishing Up Odds and Ends Knitting. On the drive up I cast on a sock out of some Kroy jacquard from stash. I love saying that! As my "stash" is composed mostly of leftovers and abandoned projects that are not actually of much use, it makes me very happy to say that I actually produced something from stash. Anyway, that one sock is done. I also knit another preemie hat, the sixth one, which is a Very Good Thing because they have to be submitted to the charity group in multiples of three.

It is humiliating to admit this: I have been cottaging in this area for almost 20 years and did not know that for the past 8 years there has been an LYS nearby. Can you imagine? So for the benefit of others in my situation, please be advised that Midland has a quite adequate LYS called Yarn Heaven, and it is on Elizabeth Street just off the main drag. Like three or four doors down. You're welcome. Anyway, I bought a ball of sock yarn there -- I couldn't leave empty-handed with so much time to make up, could I? -- and cast on the first of what I hope will be four little mini-sockies. Tennis socks, we used to call them back in the day. Maybe they still call them tennis socks. I'm too old to know what those hip youngsters are saying these days.

Somewhere halfway through the gusset of that first sockie I discovered a dropped stitch right smack in the middle of the heel. It could have slipped off either the first or the fourth needle. I picked it up and crochet-hooked it back into place and counted stitches to determine which needle had dropped it. The predictable answer: neither. It was a phantom stitch. It belonged nowhere. And yet I couldn't drop it again because it laddered. The only logical conclusion was that my sock was haunted and, as this cottage does not stock the supplies to perform an exorcism I was forced to frog the damned thing. Well, actually I tried several times to rip back a few rows until I'd reached the genesis of the problem, but each time I picked up the stitches that phantom booger was still there. I decided that planting the phantom stitch was the knitting gods' way of punishing me for not finishing the Kroy pair before starting another. So I have cast on the second Kroy sock and am hoping the angry gods will be appeased. And that's one less odd or end I'll have to fasten off when I get home.