Grrr...
12.09.2004
The order of the day yesterday?
F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-N!!
Allow me to explain. First, I decided that I wanted to get the new socks going for the 6 sox knitalong so I tried to cast on for them. Noticed I said tried. Apparently that whole thing about "musicians can only count to four" is totally true. If I didn't end up having the wrong number of stitches I ended up with the yarn going in the wrong direction, something twisted or whatnot. Just to add to the insanity, I'm also doing them with the magic loop method and two on one circ. I managed this for the wristwarmers without a problem but somehow after four tries I have been completely unable to do it for these socks! After ripping it out for the fourth time I put it out of my sight before I started making a noose out of Koigu!
So then I turned my attention to what should have been much easier. Casting on for the Quick Cable Sweater. I've been dying to get this one started for a while. Managed to find the yarn on sale for less than $20 for the whole sweater. I'm doing it in Lion Brand Thick and Quick in Sky Blue 106 on size 11 Addi Turbos. I even did a new cast on where instead of a long tail you just put loops on the needle by kind of twisting the yarn back on itself (anyone know the actual name for this? Sami are you reading this?! :) ). Of course I cast on the wrong number of stitches and ended up having to tear it out. Then I finally got things going and while knitting along all fat dumb and happy at SnB last night I kept looking at my work and thinking "Weird. Those stitches look twisted". Smart little me of course thought that this couldn't possibly be so since I'm now knitting into the front loop as I am supposed to. The Magic Stripes socks taught me that. However, Sami came over at the end of the night and came to the same conclusion I did, "I think you are twisting your stitches again". ACK! How can this be?!? Turns out, because I knit *combination* style, when working in the round the knit stitch goes into the front of the loop, but when working in the flat, the knit stitch goes into the back of the loop!! And exactly HOW is my tired little brain supposed to remember this?? I have no idea. And exactly why is it that this is the case?? If anyone can explain that to me I would be eternally grateful.
So being the good little knitter I am, I went home frogged the whole thing and started over. I'm happy to report that I finally managed to finish one pattern repeat without screwing anything up and my stitches are indeed ok now. Life is a learning experience.
Oh, and speaking of learning... I learned that an itty bitty cable needle just isn't gonna work for this particular project. Someone suggested using a pencil instead last night but the closest I had was a plastic size K crochet hook. It actually works quite well. You can see there is a bit of a difference in size:
Now I think I'm going to go look up the directions for two socks on one circ and give it another shot. I'm hoping whatever bad vibe it was that was messing with me yesterday is gone now that I've straightened out the sweater. Who knew you have to exorcise your knitting sometimes!!
F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-O-N!!
Allow me to explain. First, I decided that I wanted to get the new socks going for the 6 sox knitalong so I tried to cast on for them. Noticed I said tried. Apparently that whole thing about "musicians can only count to four" is totally true. If I didn't end up having the wrong number of stitches I ended up with the yarn going in the wrong direction, something twisted or whatnot. Just to add to the insanity, I'm also doing them with the magic loop method and two on one circ. I managed this for the wristwarmers without a problem but somehow after four tries I have been completely unable to do it for these socks! After ripping it out for the fourth time I put it out of my sight before I started making a noose out of Koigu!
So then I turned my attention to what should have been much easier. Casting on for the Quick Cable Sweater. I've been dying to get this one started for a while. Managed to find the yarn on sale for less than $20 for the whole sweater. I'm doing it in Lion Brand Thick and Quick in Sky Blue 106 on size 11 Addi Turbos. I even did a new cast on where instead of a long tail you just put loops on the needle by kind of twisting the yarn back on itself (anyone know the actual name for this? Sami are you reading this?! :) ). Of course I cast on the wrong number of stitches and ended up having to tear it out. Then I finally got things going and while knitting along all fat dumb and happy at SnB last night I kept looking at my work and thinking "Weird. Those stitches look twisted". Smart little me of course thought that this couldn't possibly be so since I'm now knitting into the front loop as I am supposed to. The Magic Stripes socks taught me that. However, Sami came over at the end of the night and came to the same conclusion I did, "I think you are twisting your stitches again". ACK! How can this be?!? Turns out, because I knit *combination* style, when working in the round the knit stitch goes into the front of the loop, but when working in the flat, the knit stitch goes into the back of the loop!! And exactly HOW is my tired little brain supposed to remember this?? I have no idea. And exactly why is it that this is the case?? If anyone can explain that to me I would be eternally grateful.
So being the good little knitter I am, I went home frogged the whole thing and started over. I'm happy to report that I finally managed to finish one pattern repeat without screwing anything up and my stitches are indeed ok now. Life is a learning experience.
Oh, and speaking of learning... I learned that an itty bitty cable needle just isn't gonna work for this particular project. Someone suggested using a pencil instead last night but the closest I had was a plastic size K crochet hook. It actually works quite well. You can see there is a bit of a difference in size:
Now I think I'm going to go look up the directions for two socks on one circ and give it another shot. I'm hoping whatever bad vibe it was that was messing with me yesterday is gone now that I've straightened out the sweater. Who knew you have to exorcise your knitting sometimes!!
Oooh...by the way, remember how I mentioned I liked Mariah so much? Apparently I'm not the only one! Looks like Eklectica is going to be hosting a Mariah - along in February. Check out her post from yesterday to sign up!
