Dearth of Knitting

There has been a dearth of knitting in my household lately.  Actually, I have been knitting, it's just been knitting the same thing over and over and over again.  I'm still working on the Inishmore.  It's the sweater that keeps on giving, especially if you lack the necessary concentration.  After having knit the first sleeve three times, I figured I'd be pretty safe of the second sleeve.  Well, you can see where this is going, can't you.  One purl in the wrong place and several hours later you realize you get the pleasure of re-knitting the whole thing again! Woo Hoo! Second time around it seems to be going pretty well, thus far anyway, and with any luck I'll finish it sometime next week.  I'm managing about an inch an evening, so I won't hope for sooner.  After I get the sleeve done, I just have to sew the bits together and then add the neck and I'm done.  I think I'll have it finished by Christmas.  I hope so because it's green and I can call it my Christmas sweater.

Can you say, "this sweater is kicking my proverbial backside?"  I know I can.

Things I've learned from this sweater:

1. Complicated is not the same thing as difficult.  There are no stitches, stitch combinations or techniques in this sweater that are new to me.  I've done them all quite sucessfully in the past, so it is not difficult for me.  It is, however, complicated and if your attention wanders for a moment, you might as well just save yourself the time and frog before you find the mistake.

2.  Sweaters like this should be knit in the round with a fake seam added if necessary.  Yes, it might take longer and may be heavier on the needles, but it may just keep you from taking that short walk to the nice, soft room they have reserved especially for knitters.

3.  Cotton yarn is lovely, but not quite as forgiving as wool.  It's also not as strong if you catch an individual strand.

4.  Even a cotton sweater can be quite warm if you add enough cables.  If I had done this in wool, I would have had to vacation in the Antarctic in May to be able to wear it.  Norway in January might do too.

5.  Before offering to knit someone a sweater, make sure you know just what you're getting into.  Three seconds on your tongue will earn you three months of knitting.

Wish me luck on the rest of it!

Random Meme

Snagged from Scrabblequeen

1. Why did you start blogging? I frankly just don’t remember.
2. If you could travel anywhere in the world with no restriction of costs, where would it be and why? Canada and Alaska including a kayaking trip somewhere cool.
3. Did you have a teacher in school that had a great influence on your life? If so, what? I don’t remember many of my teachers and I don’t think any one particular teacher had any great influence.
4. If you could spend the day with a famous person, who would it be, and what would you do? I don’t think I’d want to spend the day with a famous person. It would be too odd. I also think their lives weren’t/aren’t as great as we think they are and finding out that were true would just be depressing. Just imagine visiting Victorian London. That would just kill the romance of the age methinks.
5. Toilet paper – over or under? Is under an option? I wasn’t aware that it was.
6. Name one thing in your life that you would do over if possible. My whole education and choice of occupation.
7. Tell about your pets – if any. I’m down to one dog, Biscuit the Great Dane and Sydney the really annoying cat. Biscuit is 6 and is a lovely dog who is so well behaved she’s very nearly boring (but not quite and I would take boring over misbehaved any time!). Sydney is a 10 year old second hand cat who was abused at her former home. I’m the only person she’ll let near her and she would turn herself into Velcro and attach herself to me if she could. It’s terribly irritating.
8. Do you live in a small town or a large town. A small village.

Lost my Knitting Mojo

Dunno if it's the Inishmore in it's twisted stitch frenzy or if I've just lost interest but I'm having a hard time concentrating of knitting at the moment. The Inishmore is a slow knit so progress is negligible and maybe that's what's doing it. I had hoped so, but then I started working on my Cabled Grapes (plain sock with plain cable down the sides) and things just got worse. First I forgot to write down how I had knit the first one and by the time I got to the second, I'd forgotten how many stitches I cast on and if I increased the amount of stitches on the leg for the cable. So, I winged the second sock. That would have been OK, but somewhere along the line, I kept losing stitches and cannot figure out where they went. This is very unlike me. I'm usually very good at socks (if I do say so myself). I can practically do them blindfolded. However, this pair just didn't want to be knit. Topping it all off, I just just about finished with the second sock when I realized the cable was running down the wrong side. Both should have been on the outside of the socks but now both are on the left side, which is silly. However, this still doesn't bother me enough to frog the whole sock (or even just up to the shaft) so I will be wearing silly socks. I console myself with the fact that I bought purple sock yarn in a silly moment and probably wouldn't wear them to be seen anyway.

Then, to make matters worse, I looked at the sleeve of the Inishmore, which I'd finally cast on last week and got going pretty good on. Turns out, I increased every other row instead of every third row and it was looking pretty bat like. I frogged back to the cuff, put the stitches back onto the needles and then realized that I lost a stitch somewhere. Now I'm going to have to frog the whole thing and start over. If I didn't really want to wear this sweater, I'd toss it in a corner and never look at it again. Wonder if that would hurt its feelings.

Maybe I should go cast on a washcloth. That's got to be foolproof, no?