Everything is Just Plummy

I'm all the way up to row 49 on the Damson, and it's looking good thus far. I've stopped counting after every single row, and instead am just doing a count before I place a lifeline. Even though I haven't used the lifelines since the very beginning of the project, I still feel like I need to put them in, as I don't trust myself.

After each row I'm doing an idiot check, just making sure that I have the correct number of yarn-overs and that they're in the correct places. So far so good.

Here's a shot of the current progress:



(taken from my cell phone. Sorry for the craptacular quality.)



So I'm quite pleased. I don't have any other projects on the needles other than Ella's shrug (Veronique). I still need to teach myself how to do the invisible provisional cast-on to move forward on this project, and I just haven't had the time to sit down and teach myself yet.

Although, on the plus side, I may be using my newfound love of lifelines as a place holder before I continue, as I think it will make the whole process smoother. I would say 'less intimidating' but to both my credit and detriment, I tend to be one of those "DAMN THE TORPEDOES, FULL SPEED AHEAD" types of peoples, and just charge through something I don't know just for the hell of it.

So knitting life is good.

I think I'll cast on for the Monkeys next.

My evening

PJs + Book.



(Zen Shorts by John J. Muth)

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.

Also

The cat is stealing all of my sunshine.

Putting the ass back in class...

I started my Damson today, and it's an awesome pattern. After I got over my initial fear of the beginning part (which read weird, but knitted perfectly), it breezed along until I got to the stitch marker part.

I ran across the street to the hardware store and picked up some washers to use as markers, but that didn't work, so I ran to my jewelry drawer and found my old nipple rings, which work perfectly. Classy, no? I can't think of a better use.


Here's a shot of the yarn I'm using for the damson, and the rings are towards the bottom of the picture. Woo!

Law of Simplicity

A simple lunch:


Very simple. Sandwich = Whole grain bread (very few ingredients), smoked ham, brie, mixed spicy baby greens (pea, radish, etc).

Book = "The Laws of Simplicity" by John Maeda

Awesome book. Excellent lunchtime reading. Very inspiring for the knitting. Also, has a great deal of the shiny on the cover. I like the shiny.

Mr. Maeda's website is shiny also. You should look at it. Really.

Knitting Disasters 101

This has been a very productive week and a half at work. However, this has been an absolutely disastrous week and a half for knitting.

Knitting Disaster No. 1:

My poor Liesl #2. Sigh. I'm not sure I can even bring myself to talk about this one. But here goes. I finished the body. It is beautiful. It would have fit me perfectly. It probably does fit me perfectly. It is some of the best knitting I have done thus far. Absolutely perfect, even, gauged, gorgeous.

Sigh.

After I finished the body, I went to work on the first sleeve. And discovered that my stitch holder had come undone and the sleeve had unraveled up into the yoke area. I am not a skilled enough knitter to pull dropped stitches through a lace pattern.

Knitting Disaster No. 2:

I started on a relatively simple project (garter stitch) for somebody for Christmas. I cast on, worked about six inches of the project, and discovered that I'd completely screwed up the pattern. Ugh.

So I tore it all out. Cast on again. Got about six inches in, and discovered that at about the two inch mark, I had dropped a stitch. In garter stitch. Which at this point, I could pretty much do in my sleep.

I tore back to the two inch mark and started again.

This time I got to about eight inches, and was at the very end of a row when I discovered that there was a knot in my yarn. So I tinked a row back, screwed up the tinking, and ended up ripping a few rows back to cover up where the tinking was. Then I cut out the stupid knot and reknitted.

And that's where I am today. Trying not to 1. Screw up again, or 2. Tear out my hair.

This blog is temporarily on hiatus

Due to impending doom. MWAHAHAHAHA...

I mean, impending work deadlines.

Hopefully I won't be buried for too long. UGH.

And hopefully I won't be abandoning my poor husband and child for too long in the evenings.

argh.

It's currently cloudy with a potential for work not sucking all my time away by Wednesday or Thursday.

Stupid work getting in the way of knitting. Stupid work getting in the way of writing about knitting. Grr.