Restless Knitter

You’ve convinced me. The Poinsettia shawl it is. I ordered it this morning from The KnittingZone. I asked them if Jaggerspun Zephyr would work for it and they said it would. Being as I had them on the phone, I also ordered the Cat’s Cradle Long-ways Scarf pattern. It’s currently out of stock but they should have it tomorrow or Friday so she’ll ship both of the patterns to me when it comes in.

I haven’t been working much on HLJ because I’ve been spending too much time surfing the web and looking through books. She’s not much farther than the last pic but here’s proof that she is progressing.

The bad thing about going through all the books and magazines is that I see all these things that I still want to make. Oh, that’s a cute baby sweater. I could have more than 2 things going at once, right? It would be a quick knit. And it would be a break between lace. Then Ooo, I like that cabled sweater, wonder if I have the yarn to do that? Then You know, a bolero wouldn’t take that long to make. I start going through the stash and make a list of what I have. I swatch. I’m getting 20 x 28, the pattern calls for 21 x 30. But I really like it, so maybe I’ll figure out how to adjust the pattern. I bounce around from project to project. My mind gets overloaded and I get discouraged because I can’t knit everything I want to Right Now!

Then I take pictures of some socks I bought awhile back because they are just too fun for words

Aren’t those fun? It’s like tattoos for the feet.  They had other designs too. Bella got ahold of one so there’s a hole in the other one. I’m sure it was only a matter of time before one of them got a hole but I would like to have worn them at least once before they had a huge runner.

The knitting police may come get me soon. My crime? I did a pair of decreases on the wrong row. If you want to get technical about it, I did all of them on the wrong row. The pattern calls for you to start decreasing on a row that would mean you’d be doing them on the purl part of the row. I’m not a big fan of purl decreases, so I waited until the next row. Really, one row isn’t going to make any noticable difference so I did it my way. I’m knitting happily along after the next set of decreases and realize that I didn’t do a pair of decreases on the previous row. There was a part of me that wanted to rip out 350+ stitches and fix it, but I didn’t. I did them on the row I was on. I dare anyone to notice. This can’t become a habit though.

This is what she looks like so far. Look how much yarn there still is in that ball.

IF I were ever to do this again, there’s one change I’d make. I’m still considering making the change on the sleeves. I’m not sure which will drive me crazier, the holes or the leaves not matching the ones on the bottom of the jacket. Here she is pinned out so you can see

See the little leaf motifs in the middle? Of course you do. Now see the two holes above the top leaf? Those are annoying me. The row AFTER those two holes are made is the row I should start the decreases on. If I hadn’t been blindly following along and had realized how it would look, I think I would have not done those two yarnovers and counted it as the first decrease row. Make sense?  As it stands now, I am NOT ripping back and doing it over.  Most people probably wouldn’t even notice.

That’s a lie. I can read very well. I wouldn’t say I’m a speed reader, but others would. You see, when I get a book, once I start reading it I can’t put it down. I will stay up into the wee hours of the night just so I can find out what happens in the end. In the last week, I’ve read 4 books. That’s right. In the last. 7. days. Three of them were by Dean Koontz, one was a true crime story. False Memory was an excellent read with 784 pages (though I did think he included a little too much detail in some of it). I didn’t start reading it until one evening so I didn’t get to finish it the day I started it, but I did finish it the next day. If I have any hopes of knitting anything, I can’t let any new books come into my possession.

I’ve seen several bloggers mention getting knitting stuff at Tuesday Morning. There happens to be one not too far from me so yesterday I went to take a look at all the wonderful bargains they have. I wasn’t impressed. They have some of the same things Target has, either costing the same or more. I finally found some yarn. There were only a couple I recognized. One was a bag of 3 Cotton Ease in orange for $9.99. No thanks. Not a bargain in my book, especially since orange is a color I can’t wear with any success. Then I found a skein of LB Homespun. I’m sure my chin hit the floor with a large thud when I first looked at the price

What in the hell kind of bargain is that! My mouth promptly closed after closer inspection. The price is for a bag of 8. Not that I would have bought it anyway, but the other 7 skeins were nowhere to be found.

I started the Heirloom Lace Jacket.

There are over 400 stitches on that 31 inch needle. They’re so scrunched they can barely breathe. I need a longer needle. I’ve tried the 2 yarn shops closest to me and they don’t have the longer length. I haven’t decided if I’ll continue to suffer through this, or order a new needle. There’s a possibility the gauge will be slightly different on a different needle but there’s also the possibility that if I rip out what I’ve done, I won’t have the drive to start it again. I’m probably going to soldier on with this needle and see how it goes. No matter what I do, I know it’s going to bite me in the ass and I’ll be wishing I did whatever else.