Ack!

I cast on Gretel last weekend after picking up another ball of the Rowan Purelife British Breeds yarn from Purlescence Yarns.  I was just about to finish the first chart when I realized that I had missed the note 10 rows back that said that the beginning of the row moved by 6 stitches.  That would certainly explain why I thought the row after that looked a bit funny.  So, I ripped back and am now slowly making my way through the chart.

Meanwhile, I think I’m coming down with a cold.

That’s just disturbing… Ack!

Ugh! I hate silverfish. 🙁 This is why I screamed when I turned my head and saw one crawling towards my head on my pillow last night. Ugh! The Husband valiantly killed it for me, but I was left feeling creepy crawly all night. I would wake up and roll over and go to fluff my pillow, then think twice about even touching the thing. I was so tired when I woke up this morning… not being able to get comfortable due to lack of pillow fluffing and nightmares with insects crawling all over my bed were no help at all. Ugh! Why can’t I find silverfish where they belong — the bathroom?! Why do I always seem to only find them in my bedroom. Most knitters spend their time worrying about moths getting into their wool. I’m spending all my time worrying about my books and photos. Ugh! And now my head… *creepy crawly shivers*

Of course, on the topic of bugs, I saw a small moth in my living room a couple days ago and ending up smooshing it when it landed on the Husband’s cheek… he just loved that. So, between seeing one small moth, then another in my bedroom yesterday afternoon that I didn’t manage to catch, and a posting in the Livejournal knitting community about infestations, I’m worrying about my wool. I did a cursory scan of my fleeces and such and everything looked untouched. So, of course, now I’m thinking, “Wait! I saw it in my bedroom… where my nice silk and wool clothing is… where the Husband’s expensive tux is… Ack!”

And I used to think that spiders were my biggest worry… *sigh*

Sadly, I have not managed any lace knitting recently, even with the long weekend. I have, however, been working on the Ribby Cardi. I am almost done with the armhole shaping on the back. I did both front over the weekend. Unfortunately, I need to redo the right front. Apparently, I’m a moron when it comes to patterns that say “Right armhole shaping: Reverse left armhole shaping.” Instead of doing a k2tog at the end of the RS rows, I did it at the beginning of the WS rows, which made a weird looking decrease rib thingy. The plan has become for me to finish the back, then rip back the right front and do it again. At least this can be said to be a learning experience, right?

Is it Spring yet?

In a week’s time we went from 88 F and sunny to 55 F and rainy. I know the Vernal Equinox was on Sunday, but we been suddenlt plunged back into winter around here. On an interesting note, a tornado hit South SF on Sunday.

I’ve had plenty to post about recently, but I’m damned if I’d had the time to do so. Thus, this post is mostly going to be look what I did last week. 🙂

Lace Scarf
This is a lace scarf I knit up as a belated Christmas present for my best friend’s fiance. I used fingering weight Frog Tree Alpaca. It seems to be a nice yarn, although I was a bit shock by the amount of guard hairs in it.


Cappachino Socks
Since the felted kitty bed was finished on Thursday night… well, the knitting part anyway… I cast on for a pair of socks. Back in November I got my Secret Sock Kit in the mail from Inspirations Yarns. It’s a beautiful chocolate-y brown color with variations in the (now let me show my complete lack of dyeing vocabulary) darkness/lightness of the color. It’s their Java yarn, which is a superwash 3-ply that they claim is sport weight. The Secret Sock Kit also came with a pattern. I decided it would probably be best to use the pattern that was written for the yarn. I get out my size 2 dpns and look at the pattern to see how many stitches I should cast on. The pattern has 2 sizes: woman’s small and woman’s large; by the numbers associated with the sizes I assumed I was a large… cast on 42 sts. This is when I notice that if you’re making the small socks you woudl cast on 40 sts. I was perplexed… 2 sts difference didn’t seem like a lot even with a gauge of 6 sts/inch. I decided to give it a shot even though I am feeling great doubt. I got through the ribbing (just an inch, thankfully) and started into the st st. I thought it looked more than a tad small while doing the ribbing, but ribbing can be deceptive. I measured my gauge in the st st… 7 sts/inch. No wonder it looked small. Switching to size 4 dpns got me to gauge, so I ripped back and started over again.


Still looks a bit too small doesn’t it. I slipped it on my foot… the knitting stretched as far as it could. Those would not be comfortable socks; I would feel every ridge of the sts. So, out it came again.


Third time’s the charm, right? I decided I liked the look of the fabric when I was using the size 2 dpns. I have a sock pattern for basic socks and one of the sizes uses a gauge of 7 sts/inch… perfect… I thought. It was huge. I didn’t even bother taking a picture of that one. I ripped it out as soon as I realized it would work for a sleeve.

The too small sock was 7 inches around, the too big sock was 9 inches around, so I settled on something in the middle. I cast on enough sts to get me 8 inches and went for it… this time I’m actually writng it down so I can knit the second sock. I started the heel yesterday – it’s a short row heel that’s a mixture of 3 different ways of doing it. So far, it looks pretty good.

I’ll take pics once the heel is completed as well as before and after shots of the felted kitty bed.

Lace Shawl, Part the Second

After taking that wonderful picture showing everything right again in my lace shawl knitting world, I ran a lifeline through my active stitches and continued onward… only to realize that I was missing a stitch somewhere. Thankfully, it was relatively easy to find and fix, but I had to pull out the lifeline to do it. *sigh*

After another purl row, the lifeline was put back in and I have been able to continue work without difficulty… so far. I’ve gotten a total of 30 lace rows done so far… it seems like so much… it seems as if this pattern works up quickly if I just sit down and work on it. Then, I remember that each row will only get longer and longer as I go on… and soon I will be cursing the shawl for not growing quickly enough.*

Soon to come: Pictures of the Needle-Eating Socks… and how they got that name.


*Knitting this shawl is beginning to resemble my relationship with my sister…. Thus, I dub this The Sister Shawl.

Two Days of Tinking Later

Before:

Back to where I was:

It only took me 2 days to tink back 4 rows, reknit everything, realize that the dropped stitches were fortuitous because there was a mistake 2 rows below where I had tinked back to…. so back I went again, this time a little further… and back up. Now I will put in a lifeline before I do any more knitting.