Author: Sarah

Alright, I have to be cryptic because it’s a gift item. I’m working on a cross-stitch on perforated paper. As this was my first project on perforated paper, I didn’t realize until I’d already started it that I absolutely hate working with perforated paper. I can’t find a good way to hold it, I’m worried that the paper is going to rip when the needle gets stuck and I have to force it through, and I can’t get any sort of rhythm going because the needle keeps getting stuck. (And I can’t use a smaller needle, because I still have to fit three strands of thread through it.) A section that (on fabric) should have taken a couple of days, tops, has taken me more than a month to get through.

It really seems – with a few exceptions, of course – that all of my projects lately have either been frustrating or have been things that I feel “obligated” to make. Maybe I need to start something new…or start buying gifts instead of making them for a while…or just admit that every gift I’m going to make this year is going to be several months late. (There’s a huge backlog already, and it’s only February!)

OK, OK, I promise I won’t post anything more until I can post without whining. :)

You are Merino Wool.
You are very easygoing and sweet. People like to
keep you close because you are so softhearted.
You love to be comfortable and warm from your
head to your toes.

What kind of yarn are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I just spent all of my free time over the past 36 hours devouring the new Monica Ferris Needlecraft Mystery novel. Don’t be too impressed, they’re not difficult reads. But when I read a mystery, I have to practically sit on my hands to not flip to the end to check my guess about who did it, so I read them fast. I actually had this one right about half-way through, and spent the rest of the book trying to figure out why the rest of the characters didn’t see it.

Silly, I know.

Anyway, that’s why the only knitting I’ve done in the past couple of days was last night at Sit & Knit. I’m a little panicked, because I think my new cardie is going to be smaller than the gauge swatch indicated. My gauge swatch gave me 19 stitches to 4″. The recommended gauge was 20 stitches to 4″. Around the body of the sweater, that would give me an extra 2″, which made the medium size perfectly match my favorite cardigan. Now that I’m several inches into it, however, I’m measuring 20 stitches to 4″. One blasted little stitch off. I suppose I could always knit the front bands a little wider if it really works out to be a little snug, especially since it uses clasps instead of buttons. Then again, maybe blocking it will do the trick. Or maybe I should (gasp) rip it and start over with a bigger needle…? That really doesn’t sound like too much fun. Did I mention that I’ve done several 3-color rows? On 215 stitches?

I think I’d better sleep on that one.

(Rant alert.)

So, I finally found a few minutes to call Alitalia to check whether I could bring my knitting with me on my flight to Italy next month. One guess what the answer is…

NO!

Can somebody tell me how 5-inch bamboo sticks on either end of a plastic cord can possibly be any more dangerous than a pencil? Please? Because I don’t get it.

18 hours of flight time, and probably at least 4-6 hours of waiting-in-the-airport time WITH NO KNITTING. This might very well kill me.

Yes, I know I could read a book, or do crossword puzzles, or watch the in-flight movies. But I want to knit. Maybe I’ll just bring a couple of pencils and a ball of yarn to knit a scarf…when you read about the crazy lady who held up an international flight because she was knitting with pencils, that’ll be me.

(Has anyone managed to bring knitting – bamboo or plastic needles, of course – on Alitalia? Are they just saying no to knitting needles because of those horrid 14-inch metal straight ones?)

Seven rows back?!?

I ended up ripping out 7 rows of two-color knitting this evening (two of those rows were actually THREE colors!) because I had somehow switched which color I was carrying on top… Well, OK, I know how. I worked on it yesterday morning before I’d had any coffee. Bad, bad idea. I realized yesterday evening after I’d done a couple more rows that the ones I had just done (the right way) looked different from the ones I had done earlier (the wrong way). I couldn’t decide if it was worth ripping, so I slept on it. (No, not the sweater, the decision!) And I had nightmares about the motifs sinking and floating randomly all over the sweater. No, not really, but I did decide that it wouldn’t kill me to rip it out and do it right. I did manage to rip out all those rows without losing a stitch, and I put three of them back in.

I’m sure I’m going to be really good at knitting this sweater by the time I’m done with it!

(Although I do have to apologize to all the Sit & Knitters, who I pretty much ignored while trying to put all 215 stitches back on the needles!)

I didn’t do much knitting this weekend…actually, I didn’t do much of anything! But I did make a pair of blue fuzzy mittens for Lisa. They were super-quick, and used up some unlabeled stash leftovers. I was going to follow the super mitten pattern in Weekend Knitting, but decided I was too lazy to bother swatching. Instead, I made up a pattern that involved knitting them from the top down, like doing socks from the toe-up. No swatching necessary!

(Of course, I was trying them on every few rows to check the fit, and with all those DPNs sticking out in every direction, I started thinking of them as Ninja Mittens of Doom!)