Restless Knitter

Dark view and light view, just because I couldn’t decide which one to use

I really want to block those corners now to make sure the puckers are going to come out. I won’t, but I want to.

I’ve been quite the slacker lately. I’ve been playing a lot of World of Warcraft and doing a lot of web surfing instead of things I need to be doing. Like knitting, ha. I need to do some cleaning, make a trip to the recycle center, and get to the store for food. Ever get in the mood of just not wanting to leave the house? That’s where I’ve been. Tonight I’m going to get off my butt and meet up with Beth. Tomorrow morning, The Man comes in and will be here for a whole week! Then my daughter and her fiance are coming for the week of Christmas. Busy week ahead so I may not get far on the shawl.

I’m a lot more selective on buying books these days. I tend not to buy them if they only have one pattern in there that I like, especially since I don’t get around to making even a quarter of the things I think I’d like to make. That being said, when I saw pictures from a particular book on Fleegle’s blog, I was sorely tempted to place an order. I am in love with that hat. I don’t normally wear hats, but I would definitely wear that one. I might try to figure this out myself first but if that fails, I’m going to be forced to place an order.

I’m at the 2nd corner of the shawl. I may be totally botching this up but I’m doing a little fiddling with this one. Since I’m one edge stitch off, I’m starting corner B on the correct edge stitch but I’m doing one less single join so my double and triple joins will be in the correct places. I hope it works.

I’m still knitting on the shawl. I have the edging attached to one side and I’ve just turned the corner on one end.

I screwed up a tad. I started attaching the edge one row later than I should have. Like, I was supposed to attach it starting at row 5 and I started it at row 6, or whatever the rows were. At the corners, you’re supposed to do a specific number of double joins and triple joins. With my goof, i have one less triple join on the long side and one more triple join on the short side. This really irritates me. I don’t know if it will make a difference in the grand scheme of things but i do know I’m not ripping out the whole edge and starting over. The corners will just have to be off and I’ll do what I can with blocking.

People, I have boxed up almost all of my knit type stuff and I would be so embarrassed to admit how many boxes it’s actually taken. The only things I’ve kept out are a couple of lace weight yarns and The Book. Or so I thought. I forgot about the small box of Koigu, a few balls of wool for headbands, and the sock that I stopped working on after getting obsessed with The Book. Then I remembered the yarn in those bags beside my seat. And there’s yarn down by the computer. And there’s a huge bag of Cotton Ease in the basement. And a few books on the kitchen table. (Cotton Ease is back by the way, in new colors. Also, you can now buy pink cords for Denise needles. Thought I’d pass that on in case you hadn’t heard.) Just when I think I have it all under control, I find more knit stuff that can be boxed up. I seriously have way too much stuff. Now if I were smart, I’d use all that yarn as packing material for breakables but there’s this weird (ocd?) side of me that wants like items to be in seperate boxes.

Now I’m going to complain about a non-knitterly thing
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How about a picture that doesn’t look naughty? One that won’t look so dark you can’t see anything on my monitor.

Okay, along with the whining I did yesterday, I have another issue. Granted, I’ve only done 3 things with knitted on edges but each one of those had you slip the inside edge stitch as if to knit with the yarn in back. I think. I’d go check but that stuff is packed up in boxes. Wait, let me back up a minute. There are some more instructions that confused me. In the directions for the center panel, it says “Slip first stitch of each row purlwise with yarn at wrong side (sl 1).” In the chart key, it says “Slip st purlwise with yarn at WS”. The problem is that each and every row (RS and WS) starts with that slipped purl stitch. So does the yarn go on the WS (back), or the wrong side (side not facing you)? If I did it on the WS, one edge didn’t have the chain (for lack of a better word) that the other side did. I ripped it out and did it my way, which is slip the first stitch purlwise with the yarn in front. That gave me the chain looking edges that I needed. So now, back to the inside edge, again I’m supposed to do that slip stitch but this time it’s a “Slip st purlwise with yarn at RS”. Since slipping wyif worked for the edges and the yarn in front is the RS row, that’s what I’m trying here. It’s giving me a hard line running between the edge and the center piece and I’m not sure if I like that, nor am I sure it’s supposed to look that way. I think it is, but it’s hard to tell. It might also be because I’m using a lighter weight yarn than what the pattern calls for. Regardless, I’m going to keep going as is. (There are corrections for the book, but so far they don’t affect me.)

Now you might think with all the complaining that I’d be ready to toss the book. I’m not. Believe it or not, I’m still really enjoying knitting the shawl and I’m still looking forward to starting the next one. I think it’s the challenge of having to try to decipher these weird (to me) instructions that’s giving me the cheap thrills. What can I say, I’m easily amused.