Effing Damson

Either the Damson is evil or I am just plain hopeless (no, opinions are NOT needed on this subject, I have already made up my mind). I gleefully cast on for this thing on Friday. It took me three or four tries to get the cast on and first few stitches right, but I wasn't judging myself, because it was a new technique and it took me a bit to understand the instructions. I sat on the couch reading out loud to myself, annoying the cat (who was stealing my sunshine at the time), knitting and ripping. And listening to Broken Social Scene, which is, by the way, awesome.

After finally perfecting the cast-on, I then merrily jumped right into the pattern. Lots of plain garter stitch with a few yarn overs thrown in for good measure. Nothing terribly complicated. I churned up to row 16, and discovered that I'd blown it at about row 4, and ripped.

So I re-cast on, knitted up to row 20, discovered that I'd screwed up somewhere and my stitch count was off, and ripped.

And re-cast on, knitted up to row 20, blah blah blah, I screwed up, blah blah blah, ripped.

Over the course of the last three days, I believe that I repeated this set of actions at least, I dunno, 30 or 40 times.

Thank GOD the malabrigo (yes, I know, but it's a DIFFERENT yarn this time, I swear) sock yarn has a little bit of nylon in it and withstands the knitting and ripping.

Last night I got real flippin smart and started putting in life-lines so that when I ripped back, I could just rip to the life line and not have to go all the way back to the beginning.

Except that I screwed up with the placement of my stitch markers (ah nipple rings... how I love the way I re-purposed you) and screwed up the knitting. It took me three or four more tries to get the stupid place markers in the right place after ripping back to the life line.

The GOOD news is, I've made it all the way up to row 28 (WOOT!) and yes, I've been putting in more life-lines and moving them up as I get to five pefect rows, and everything is working out beautifully, if slowly.

I will at some point, post a picture of what I have thus far to prove, if to nobody but myself, that I did actually make it all the way to row 28 without any major imperfections at least once.

And yeah, I read on Ravelry "Oh, Damson is such a quick knit, I had such a blast doing it, and it was so easy" all the time. And to those of you that have had no problems with the Damson, I fart in your general direction.


Or at least the cat does.