Restless Knitter

I checked Ravelry yesterday to see how far down the line I am. Once those 4300 people are out of my way, I’m in! Just because I like to whine, I tried to sign up for Ravelry months before but apparently the connection at the apt was so slow it wasn’t bringing up the fields I really needed to fill in so I was typing in the login fields for nothing, so they should really let me in now because I did try before. Queen of long run on sentences, wheee! Anyhoo! Even though there are a lot of people ahead of me, I decided to start preparing by sifting through the stash. I might possibly get it sorted and out of boxes too so this is a good thing.

Before I got far, I realized a couple of things. I have a lot of blue yarn. I have a fair bit of variegated yarn that has blue in it and, for the most part, lavender. I haven’t even gotten through all the boxes and, at the rate I knit, I have enough to keep me occupied for a good long time. In other words, I don’t need to buy yarn so maybe it’s time to toss a bunch of it so I have an excuse to buy more for a little yarn diet. Nothing strict because that will just piss me off and make me want to buy yarn just to spite myself. No, I do not need professional help thank you very much. Yes you do No I don’t Tell the voices in my head to shut up.

Then there’s the variegated yarn issue. There are so many pretty variegated yarns out there but you can’t use them in every pattern. Take cables for example. Most variegated yarns don’t work well for cables. The pattern gets lost in the colors. I think you have to be a little mindful of some of the lace patterns also. I’ve seen some that you couldn’t tell were lace because the colors so overshadowed the details, but others worked out beautifully. I have a feeling that the lace variegated I have is going to be one of those overshadowing colors. I’m not saying it can’t be pretty because it might well be. It just may be hard to see the lace pattern. The variegated yarns that I’ve taken note of in my stash (so far) are heavier weight. Schaefer Laurel, SWTC Karoake, and Patons SWS. I know I could easily use the Karoake and SWS in a multi-directional scarf but what if I don’t want to? What other stitch patterns work well for variegated yarns? So that’s the mission I’m on at the moment. Going through stitch pattern books and trying different stitch patterns with some variegated Sugar n Cream is keeping my mind off the 4300 people I want to mow down I have to patiently wait behind.

Am I the only one in the world who hates cooking with gas? I’ve read that once you cook with gas, you’ll never go back to electric. This has proved to be not true with me. Someone has to give me reasons why gas is better. Reasons other than but gas is cheaper than electric. With electric, you have a solid burner of hot surface. Okay, maybe not solid, but it reaches farther than a ring of fire. The ring of fire only hits the bottom of the pan where fire actually is. So, you have a ring of fire that goes around 6 inches, but it doesn’t touch anything inside that 6 inches. With an electric burner that is 6 inches, everything inside that 6 inches touches the pot. In my eye, you have a more even cooking surface. With electric, you can turn the burner off but leave the pan on there to keep warm. With gas, you turn off the fire and you’re done. If you want to be done with electric, you can move the pot off the burner but if you want to keep it warm with gas, you have to leave the fire on. And it just takes a helluva lot longer to bring a big pot of water to a boil with gas. (How much cheaper is it if takes twice as long?) That’s because of that ring of fire thing. I’ve heard people say it’s easy to touch a hot burner because you don’t see it’s on. Hello, have you ever touched the grill over the fire even though the fire was off? That’s not exactly cold. And I’ve never once said omg I hate the way electric smells when you turn on the oven. Tell me where my thinking is flawed.

Something else that I seem to be different than everyone else. I hate leather. Oh, it’s fine for purses and knitting bags and shoes. But car seats and office chairs and sofas? I hate it. It’s either freezing or you stick to it from sweat. Or both. It can start out freezing, then your ass warms it up and you start sweating. This is all really fine with me. Leather seating is more expensive so I’m more than happy to have a car with cloth seats and a cloth sofa. My husband, however, loves leather. I don’t get it. Well, I get it but I don’t like what I get. Leather does tend to be more expensive, therefore if you have leather you appear more.. status quo? He says he likes the feel of it better. And I do get the part where the cat hair doesn’t get stuck on the back of the seat as easily, meaning he doesn’t sneeze so much. (He is SO allergic to the cats. They were part of the package so he deals but I won’t be able to get any more in the future.) But how can a man who can never get cool enough like to sit on something that makes you hot, where I can never get warm enough and I hate to sit on that crap. I let him talk me into a leather office chair because it’s nicer and I’ve hated this damn chair ever since. We now have leather seating, and I have a sheet over it so I don’t stick to it while he seems surprised that it feels warm to me.

Things I love include my Dyson (mine is purple and red!), many different flowers, and Cool Whip. Oh, and yarn. Can’t forget the yarn.

I mentioned that I didn’t want to say anything about the pink blob out of knitting fairy fear. What I would have said was “This thing is going fast, I could be done in a couple of days. Then I can stalk the stash and start something else, yay.” It seems like it was a lot longer than a week ago that I started the edge but thanks to my superb blogging skills, I see it was just 7 days ago. The knitting on the KKS is done and has been for 2 days. Twice I had to fix a kitty on the border due to popping stitches off the needle as I pushed them forward, and those stitches always included a yarnover and a corresponding decrease. Now you all know that if I had said before what I wanted to say, I would have to do a lot more fixin’ than that and it would have taken me longer than 5 days to finish the border. There towards the end, after the kitties were all formed, I was sorely tempted to do a couple of rows of garter stitch and call it complete. I was really tired of knitting it, and wanted to move on. I didn’t. I was determined I was going to see this pattern all the way through to the end, as written. Right now, I’m wishing I’d done the garter stitch border. Right now I’m dealing with whip stitching the folded edge. Sewing live stitches to (dead?)stitches a few rows down. I started out good, but now I’m to the second corner and things are off by what looks like 2 stitches. It is driving me BONKERS! It’s killing my back. Whine whine wine. Which I’m considering drinking. My back won’t hurt and I won’t give two shakes about being a few stitches off. So what if the border is wonky.

Oh hey, for all you going to SAFF, what day are you planning on getting there? For those that have gone before, do things sell out on the first day?

I almost forgot to take a picture of this

before it became this

I’m not going to say anything about this because we all know how easy it is to piss off the knitting fairy.

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