How Knitting is like Marriage or Am I Addicted to Television

We're having a rough patch - this scarf and I. I've turned to Oreos and Wine to make myself feel better - which is not a good combination by the way, in case you're thinking about it now. Oh its great while you're in the middle of it, but suddenly you're one oreo and one glass too many and boy do you feel snoodgy. I don't know what snoodgy means, but think about how you'd feel with too much red wine and oreos, and therein lies the definition of snoodgy.

So we're sailing along, knitting happily. My stitches appear to be making a pattern, I get to the end of the row and its the right number of stitches, and I count them and they are correct for the next row. Then suddenly my knitting bad fairy takes advantage of a bathroom break, or somehow sneaks her paws in there while I glance momentarily at "McDreamy" from Grey's Anatomy on the television and look back and... what happened?? Something is wrong. There are too many stitches, I'm not purling where I think I should be purling. Am I too tired again? Probably. This time I put down my knitting while mid-row. I just couldn't get a handle on it. Will I ever ever get this scarf finished? Or will I set it down with the multitudes of other projects I have set aside only to start something new. I think what I need is a 'TV-watching' knit project. Something I can knit, without having to check, and count, and cross off instructions every 5 minutes. Ok, some of you - or maybe a lot of you are saying, "Just turn off the stupid TV". Yeah, I hear ya. Right. But nope - I'm brain dead - it's the end of the day and really I want to knit, but I also just want to absorb myself in the misery of the life of characters on a TV show. I don't want to think about the fact that I haven't bought my four year old an outfit for school pictures tomorrow and nothing is clean and I'm going to have to do some serious rummaging for something for her to wear come 6:30 am. I don't want to think about the fact that I haven't done dishes or cleaned out the lunch boxes and I'm going to have to find something to put drinks in tomorrow. And I really don't want to think about the fact that everything I put off tonight will be doubled tomorrow night when I'm thinking about zoning out instead of dealing with it. So there.
All I'm saying is - this scarf (we'll set the TV stuff aside for now, because I often knit without it on), - we have our good days and we have our bad days. Today is a bad day, but maybe tomorrow things will get better. I just need to take a deep breath, and try to solve the problems at hand and move on with it. Maybe if I paid a little more attention to my knitting and less on the TV, or on other things - it would get the attention it deserves and be sweet to me. Maybe I need to grasp the understanding that I've set a lot of things aside to be with my knitting, but I'm still not doing everything I can do to be there for it. I need to love my knitting, and my knitting alone. Turn off the TV and turn off the podcasts, (Sorry David Reidy and Brenda Dayne) and just listen to my knitting for a change. Tomorrow is another day.

Knitting Fairy

It's true. I have one in my house. I have been visited twice now by the knitting fairy. Or maybe it's a gnome. I just love the word fairy and all it's connotations, so I have to say fairy. Maybe it's an umbrella term for all things good and fun and sometimes sneaky.
At any rate, a couple of times now I've gotten exasperated with my knitting. Where I am hopelessly tangled with messy messes and have far too many stitches on my needles and have to rip out several rows and the whole thing is so bloody horrible to think about, I sometimes just set it down thinking, "Is it really likely I'm ever going to have the energy to deal with this?". And then I step away. I wash dishes or put the kids to bed, or whatever, and I come back and take a deep breath, and sit down to deal with the ...wait a minute. WHERE is the big mess? (Re-count stitches...) Oh my god...the right amount - the pattern seems to match...um...guess I'll keep going. Thus...the knitting fairy. She clearly fixed it while I was gone!!
I guess I gave up on my scarf too quickly last night. I wrote a letter to ELANN swearing up, down and sideways that they had forgotten to post a corrections note on this pattern. Hmmm. looks like it was me after all. I'm sorry ELANN people!! Good thing I'm not famous or I'd have to print an apology and correction! They wrote back an email and offered to help. For the fifth time I sat and looked at the pattern, and counted out all the stitches as I would knit them if I were following the pattern and NOW it matches. Wait a minute - last night I got the wrong number of stitches 3 times!!! That knitting fairy - she not only fixed my knitting but she fixed my pattern as well! She is so incredible and amazing. I love her.
That's all. And now I'm too tired to knit. Too bad I didn't realize that last night.

Antique Ivory Swift

Will you JUST look at how beautiful this is?? Um anyone have $26,000 to spare? I'll pay ya back - I promise!

It is a very old, antique hand-carved swift of ivory from a website that shows antiques from the old scrimshaw and whaling days. You can't see at the bottom, but that is a little carved hand holding the stem.

Can you imagine the face of the wife of this whaler that presented this to her as a gift after being away sailing and whaling for god knows how long? So amazing! Back in those days these guys would carve ivory gifts for their wives while they were away - usually hair combs, or sometimes little toys for their children. But THIS is really something - and practical! She must have used it - oh would I love to be a fly on the wall back in those days just to see the kinds of things people used, and how they used them. But I'm off on another tangent.

There are more detailed pictures on the website, including some of the the gorgeous inlaid wooden box it comes in/with. Look at this link to the site and you can click on photos to enlarge them.

OK back to the knitting now. About that Leaf and Acorn scarf I've started; I ripped it out and started again because I ran into some mistakes and I wanted it to be perfect. So I started again, and once more I've run into a road block. And I even went so far in effort as to contact the owner of the ranch in Texas where the Mohair was made (her goats), hand-spun and dyed, to be sure I could get a second skein, so I can finish it. By the way, I may as well plug her. She has beautiful stuff and so far it's only available in Texas, but I called one of the shops (in Dallas) and they are willing to ship. In fact they are calling me when my yarn is in. It's http://www.elcoyoteranch.homestead.com/ . Check it out and tell her the woman who called this week about the avocado mohair sent you!

The mohair I received is in a color called Avocado, but I think it's more of a dark mint/something else. It's very pretty! And I don't like the standard pastel mint color in general. Oh I think I have a photo of it:

Unfortunately this picture doesn't do it justice. It's quite a different color than this...darker and richer - both. And it has a twang of lime or olive to it, that you can't see here.

The texture is gorgeous and the woman at the shop in Dallas said she does really really well with El Coyote Ranch's yarns.

So there's my plug - ok and once again. Now back to the errors in the Leaf and Acorn Scarf. I don't understand it, I've tried counting them out in the pattern, but the stitches are wrong. It seems to start around row 8. They claim you should have 76 stitches and I keep ending up with 75. Then on the next row I somehow ended up with 77 stitches, and I'm supposed to have 76. The following row is supposed to have 83 and I'm such a mess I'm back to 76? SO CONFUSED I don't know if i should keep following the pattern and ignore how many stitches they say I should have and see if it works out, or if I should somehow self-edit my stitches to match theirs. HELP HELP HELP!!! Someone please tell me what to do!! I posted the link to the pattern on the previous site. If anyone reads this please let me know what you think. I hope someone reads this and can help me.

Knitting Lace

So, I am back and in full force now. I have decided to try knitting Lace. I went to my LKS, and wound up some beautiful Avocado Mohair that my Secret Pal gave me, from TEXAS. (With some guilt, even though I just finished the socks for my Secret pal's baby that i was supposed to send her in May, I haven't sent her what was due). Anyway, I decided at first to do this shawl - a one skein shawl that looked really really easy. It is the secret of the "One Skein Shawl" - Looks nice and easy doesn't it. Especially on those huge needles. Guess what i lowered the size of the needles to 11, so I could wear it as a neck scarf. It was probably going to still be way to big. I'll never know. I got to about 70+ stitches on the needles and I frogged it. I just didn't like it. I wanted something that looked amazing. This "fishing net" looking thing, did not do my beautiful green hand-spun mohair justice. So I picked out a new pattern and started over. First I picked something else simple with little kitty paws on it - a scarf. Then I still said, "No!" It needed to be better than that. So I picked this gorgeous thing: The Leaf and Acorn Scarf at Elann.com. It's so gorgeous I can't stand it. So I cast on and began. I got lost around row 12. Yikes. I ripped it out and began again this morning. I am bad about photos but I will get one on of the yarn and my beginnings. And maybe a photo of the baby socks as well. As soon as I block and do the final finishing work on them. I'm currently listening to Brenda Dayne of 'Cast On' while I work. My other favorite is David Reidy from 'Sticks and String'. I've been catching up on their earlier posts and I'm finally getting to the current stuff - thank goodness. Oh and for any of you Mom's out there. I'm from the Boston area and love love LOVE the podcast "Manic Mommies". I listen to it while I do dishes and laundry and ignoring my whining children who want snacks and dinner. It's the perfect thing. Makes me feel like I'm not alone.
- Have a great day all!

It's Been a long long long long Summer

I haven't dropped of the face of the Earth. I only slipped off the Knitting planet for a short while. I failed miserably at my attempts to keep up with the Secret Pal stuff. I just was way too busy. I had better not sign up for another one, unless I promise to keep on top of it.
Now that Fall is here, I'm going to make an effort to return. I really want to join Ravelry, and hope that that will boost my incentive to finish stuff.
Life has been full of so many things that have nothing to do with knitting. I haven't worked on my socks, or sweaters in well...about 3 months. I know - it's horrible - I know. But here I am, and i have been listening to David Reidy's Podcast, "Sticks and Strings" all summer, catching up on old ones and working my way into the current ones. I think I like him more than Cast On now - nearly.
I've gotten into this horrible habit of either working or playing computer games while i listen instead of any actual knitting. Probably the worst habit I could pick up, and so I must force myself to only listen when I knit. Yeah, OK...well I'll try anyway.