Proceed carefully

~Okay, I wrote this post over two weeks ago (looks like it was means for April 30), and when I posted it the middle bit was chopped out. I've been meaning to fix this post and rewrite it, but at this point I'm just going to fudge it.~

I always thought I was good at following directions and reading everything through clearly. Building bookshelves, a website, doing my taxes, catching important but minimally mentioned plot points, that's me.


Building a knitted garment, however, is not something my mind seems to want to do. Take for instance my early mishap with the Citron shawl. Having gotten through the strange 'knit a sort of square thing' with a lot of help from Amber (who says this cast on for shawls is used quite regularly) I jumped in. Knitting merrily along,


Row 1 [WS]: K3, place marker, p3, place marker, k3.


Row 2 [RS]: K3, slip marker, [m1, k1] three times, m1, slip marker, k3. 13 sts.


I get to the instruction Rows 3-5: Work in pattern as set, maintaining first and last 3 sts in garter st and working sts between markers in stockinette st. No problem. That means keep doing the pattern set up in Rows 1 and 2. I knit Row 6.
 
Row 6 [RS]: K3, slip marker, [m1, k1] seven times, m1, slip marker, k3. 21 sts. That instruction came after the section I had just knitted. Does this apply to the whole pattern? It doesn't seem to...but if I apply that to everything, then yes, the counts do come out properly. I ripped it out, started over, followed the instructions, and now I am much further along. Okay, further along for me. I am now halfway through the second section. Ok, that could have been a misinterpretation of instructions, but how about what happened last Thursday night?


What??? After this increase I am to have 21 stitches? I don't remember now now many I did have, but if I was going along increasing, starting with 13 stitches, plus 4, plus 8?, plus ??, so I had 40 or so stitches instead of 21. But I didn't notice that 21sts and I kept going.


Rows 7-11: Work in pattern.


By now I had WAAAY too many stitches, and I was looking at the counts, trying to figure out what I had done. A little further down in the pattern, it said


SHAWL BODY

Note: In all directions that follow, “work in pattern” means to work in stockinette st, maintaining first and last 3 sts in garter st as set.

~Here's where the bit I wrote disappeared. Crucial right? Anyway, figured it out, thought either the pattern/pattern writer/myself was having a bad day. Ripped it out completely, started again, which gave me practice with the odd casting on for this project, and ta-dah! I am now halfway through the second round of instructions.~

By the way, the white strings are dental floss lifelines so that I can rip back to the beginning of the section if necessary.

I was watching the finale of Project Runway (disappointing) and decided to dig in and make some progress on Emmaline since I had one and a half rows done. I was stuck on the row with RLI - right lifted increase - since I knit lefty and need to reverse the way I do the stitch. The instructions say:


RLI (Right Lifted Increase): Use the right needle to pick up the stitch below the next stitch on the left needle. Place it on the left needle, then knit into it. 1 stitch has been increased. 


Using this increase helps give the bulky yarn structure. I refer to the close up photo of the lovely, tight raglan seam of Emmaline. It looks like two solid lines of stitches drawn diagonally near the shoulder. 


And what did I do? Not that. M1 instead, which leaves a gaping hole beneath the added stitch. R-i-p.


After searching out instruction online, I started again. I now have about 10 rows of Emmaline so far, and I still don't think my RLIs look like the picture, but I have to keep going. It's the perfect weather to wear this now, and if I don't hurry up, it will be too hot. Maybe I should spend the weekend knitting?

Well I wasn't planning on...

Well I wasn't planning on blocking it. And it's going to drive me crazy. must be time to rip...iI'm only 8 rows in. better now than later.

Here is the beginning of my Citron shawl. I think I need tl start over. See the column on the right lf stktches that are bigger than the others? That means I have to redo, right?

Fidgety people drive me nuts. It's bad enough that I'm on a train that is not moving, escaping the rain that has soaked through my pants and knee-high socks, but now I also cannot enjoy my wonderful book because I can see you fussing in my peripheral vision. With your bag. Your wallet. Your scarf and how it rings your neck. Yes, you are straddling two open seats and mange to KEEP bumping into me. I want my space. I position myself in every situation so that I will not have to put up with unnecessary touching. Yes, put your headphones in NOW, after we've been on the train for 15 minutes. Can you hear me screaming in my head? And now the woman on my left is poking me with her bony arm. How many times do you need to adjust your iPod?

--updated 2/28/2010--
Um, yes, I was ranting a bit, but really people. Be aware of your body. PLEASE!

and that photo above is from when my big sister and I stopped at the cafe at the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum and had amazing coffee, divine mushroom soup, and some unspeakable dark chocolate bread pudding.

it's so easy! ...or is it?

--excerpted from an email last week--

oh, I'm knitting my hat on size 10 circulars (29") and it's getting tight. I need to start decreasing and thought i could magic loop it, but I'm not sure the cord is long enough. I thought, no problem, I'll just switch to my interchangeable needles, but my stupid set does not have the same measurements as everything else! A 10 is supposed to be 6.0mm. My interchangeable Boye set has the 10 at 5.75mm. I only figured this out a few months ago and realized that part of my too tight knitting issue was NOT my fault! but actually the fault of the faulty kit designers. So in fact my too tight knitting was exacerbated by the inconsistency of the world of Boye. Right now I'm trying to figure out if I should:

a. switch to the boye needles and attempt to knit a little looser so I won't see the difference in tension

b. switch to the boye needles, notice the difference in tension and swear up a storm as I try to decide whether or not to rip it out

c. continue on with current circular needles until knitting becomes painful, THEN switch to horrible said boye tips and give myself a migraine

d. somehow magically successfully use the magic loop method to finish fantastic hat before the snow flies and avoid stupid boye set altogether

e. use boye needle tips as fondue skewers and give up knitting

f. sell boye set on ebay and pass the frustration on to another unsuspecting knitter, thereby calming the voices in my head that scream for consistency, and maybe buy myself the nicey-nice KnitPicks interchangeable set.

My friend Annmarie has been wooed by KnitPicks. Do you have any of their needles? What do you think?

Slow growing garden

This year I decided to plant some seeds, buy a few small plants, and try my hand at fire escape gardening. We're now halfway into June, and how are my plants? Small. Spindly. Nonstarters. Yes, we've had a very cool and wet spring, and by now we should be into the thoroughly disgusting days of summer (read 85-95 degrees with 80-90% humidity, but no rain at all). Don't get me wrong. I LOVE spring, and cool days, and rain, so you would think I'm loving this weather, right? Wrong. I want my plants to GROW! I have planted so many seeds that have come to nothing. The seeds that have grown are still tiny little seedlings that probably shouldn't be outside in this cool weather.

So, I've been doing the dance of putting all the pots on the fire escape, then pulling them all in when I hear it's going to be cold and rainy. But then I forget to put them back outside.

I even brought my tomato plant inside for this week since it was still rainy and cool, and my plant seemed to be suffering.

Another problem is that the fire escape just doesn't get enough light. How am I supposed to know how much sun that spot gets? My mom said to watch that spot during a day I am home and see how many hours of light it gets. But what kind of light? This is all very confusing. 'Full sun' means what exactly? I had great light in the spring, until the tree leaves filled in. Now it's hard to tell how much sun is getting through.

Last Wednesday I bought 6 basil plants and 4 kale plants. Today I put them outside but they are still in the little plastic thing they came in. I'm worried they'll dry out today before i can put them in the planter, but they were suffering inside.

Wound Too Tight

This morning while waiting for the bus, I watched as a man unwrapped a Ghiradelli mint chocolate square, put the chocolate in his mouth, and dropped the wrapper on the ground in one smooth motion. Infuriating! He was standing next to the Metro paper box and I wanted something to read on the bus, so I grabbed a paper and bent down and picked up his trash. I walked 15 feet behind where we were standing, and threw the wrapper away.

A few minutes later, he did the same thing. THE SAME THING! INFURIATING! I know both times he consciously dropped the trash. I don't know if he saw me pick up the first wrapper. But after dropping the second he started to walk away. I caught him and asked him to pick up the wrapper. I don't remember what was said now, but we had this weird exchange of me trying to get him to pick it up, him saying that he's keeping that guy who's sweeping employed. I picked up the wrapper and threw it in the trash (which is a big bin next to the entrance of the Davis Square Suway). Then he said something about not seeing the trashcan, etc., and mumbled, and said Thank you! I think I said it's okay, you're welcome, as I tried to turn down my seething anger at a total stranger. Then he walked away down the street.

I take it he wasn't waiting for the bus. He must have been, in fact, standing there and eating his chocolate in order to drop the trash in the path of the person sweeping the ground. AUGH! How does this make sense?

I think I'm a bit stressed out.

Leave me alone!

Is it just me or is there some cosmic force at work this week that is turning evverything to muck this week? I am in the middle of yet another crisis at work. Apparently one of our consultatns just discovered that he doesn't have a flight booked from philly to LAX for the 15th. 3 days from now. And this is supposed to me my fault? I don't think so. So now I am scrambling to fix the mistake that was made and get him on a flight asap. Only he's not returning my emails or phone calls. Great. Just great.