Cheating on a yarn diet

I think it’s safe to say you’re allowed a cheat day on most diets.  Otherwise you go kinda crazy and eat buy All. The. Things.

In June, my cheat was some lovely yarn from Sin City Knits in Las Vegas.

 

This week it was Knit Picks and Knit Circus. My break is over and I’m working on getting back into WIP and stash management. My Ravelry queue and WIP pile is really helpful for this.  I will be kitting up Christmas projects soon so I can always have a project ready to do. They will be small so I can also take them to school with me so I can knit a few stitches when my brain needs a break from physics.

Update:  My friend Janalee assures me that it’s not cheating on a yarn diet. The yarn was obviously always mine, I just need to wait until it was old enough to bring it home from the yarn foster care home.  I like her.

A new project is like a new notebook

There is something magical about a brand-new notebook. It’s crisp and clean and full of potential. I won’t lie, I may be a little addicted to school, office, and stationery supplies.

So much potential. This project is so new, it hasn’t had time to give me grief. Oh, I know it’s coming. These will be my at school project.  New school year, new project, new notebook.

Two at a time, toe-up socks in Felici Time Traveler.

Today’s project and mug

Today’s mug is a purple Catffeinated mug. I don’t remember where I got it, but I’ve seen it online.

The project is the Sword of Gryffindor Mitts that I started over two years ago. I wrote about my project notes the other day. I began searching through the other projects on Ravelry and reading the project notes and came across a kind Raveler who wrote the entire pattern out row by row with notes on what to change if you wanted the mitts to look like the picture.

I was hopeful that this time it was going to go a lot better.

Then I was reminded how tedious it is to tink ssk.

Project Notes

I’m working on a lace project. It’s supposed to be a simple lace project judging by the pictures. It’s a pair of stockinette arm warmers with a bit of lace up the side.  The pattern is a little on the vague side, filled with references I didn’t understand. Like “work 7 rows even”. I surmised that I should continue this same row for seven more rows. I wrote out the entire pattern including the extra 7 rows for most of the rows listed in the pattern.

I picked this project back up after letting in languish in my WIP pile for over a year. I immediately started to struggle with the pattern and here is what I found when I checked the notes I kept last year:

5/31 – I got gauge when I swatched. Yay.

This is weird for me. I’m suspicious. And the arm length already looks too long.

The pattern is already stressing me out.

6/1 – My daughter changed her mind on the color :/

The thing hit the frog pond and I’ll cast on with a really dark blue or purple. I get to decide.

Oh my gosh, I just had to learn a SPP, which is like the weirdest thing ever.

I’m reading between printed instructions and charts and then back again on one row.

Yarn over from the purl side?  Holy cow.

I’m barely a couple of rows in and some how I’m missing a stitch.

6/3 frogged again

6/4 -and again.

Despite reading the entire pattern, I missed the part that said “red the last 2 rows 3 more times”. I’m feeling really clueless here.

I used highlighter tape because it seemed really important

and again. I was short two stitches at the end of the last repeat. But hey, I got one row farther than I did before!

This isn’t champagne. But it should be. Or at least wine. Sadly, I don’t drink.

6/6 – I wrote down all the rows in a notebook and checked them off as I did them.

I finally got through the edging. I also wound the yarn into a yarn cake hoping I could convince the yarn that it was now something else and that perhaps it wouldn’t mind being this project.

My project jumped out of my bag and landed in a pile of tree pollen. I didn’t have to frog but it took me a while to get all the vegetable matter out of it.

8/7/2018 – I picked this back up again. I’ve done another couple of lace projects since then and it should be easier.

Purl 3 together. Who does that?

I missed the little bit that still has the highlighter tape on it again. It was still important.

I just figured out what “work 7 rows even” means. (Thanks Kit!) I hadn’t been doing it.

The whole damn thing hit the frog pond. Where is the magic, tell-all book that explains all the details that patterns like these leave out?

I may or may not have stomped on the the few stitches that wouldn’t unravel. In public, at knit night.

No wonder I haven’t worked on this thing for a year two years.

8/8/18 – This is an excellent project to keep a mother’s mind distracted while her son is getting his wisdom teeth out.