For my next trick..

You know what? Most days when I wake up I feel pretty good about my intelligence. I mean, I dress myself, I keep other people alive, I manage to hold down a job and answer random questions about the universe from my children. (Who did think of the idea of legwarmers? Why? Why don’t they only have one kind of screwdriver? If we know that men and women are equal, why do men make more money and own more things than women? Why do mice come in colours?) Yup, I feel pretty good about myself. I’m regularly exhibiting all of the signs of an average intelligence.

Then, there are these moments.

Msffront

See the pretty mitten? See the elegant white rows that run through the centre three rows of the motif? I cruised past the place where I am supposed to change to white every single time I got there. Not just by one row, but by one and a half picky rounds every single time.

Centre

It is not until I knit that centre stitch that something in my head says, *Oh, hold on. Weren’t we making this row (and the row before it ) White? Then I curse in Latvian (many thanks to Mary-Heather for making this moment culturally appropriate) , then I unpick an entire round and a half of the teeny weeny little stitches, then re-knit them using white. Then I make a mental note. Note to self: Remember. We are knitting the centre three rows with white. Do not make this dumbass mistake again.

Then I merrily come along until I get to the centre stitch. A row an a half too late for the change again. I repeat from the * until I get that strange vibrating twitch over my right eye or until I have finished the mittens. What is this? Some sort of block? Can I not learn this? Small children have conquered ideas like this! All I have to do is change my background to white the row before the centre. Where the centre is remains constant…I don’t even have to go looking for it! You could teach a chicken to do this, but me? I am defeated.

Further evidence that I am not as smart as we had hoped is that in my quest to successfully change colours every nine rows, I did not even glimpse success. I didn’t “almost” do it, I didn’t do it not quite so completely, I didn’t remember and then forget again… I screwed it up to exactly the same point each and every time, and I never caught it until I got to the centre stitch. I cannot be taught.

You will note in this image of the palm of the mitten,

Msfpalm

that this band of white is missing in the repeat closest to the top. I discovered this right after I had woven in all the ends for the top and I was so angry with myself that I almost ate the mitten in an apoplectic fit of frustration . I just didn’t have it in me to rip it back.

I have pointed this out so that not only can this bug me forever…it can annoy the lucky recipient too. (Apparently having my intelligence taunted by wool makes me a little crabby.)

Are you still all watching the total in the sidebar? Know that it is still not quite current, but that I’m working as fast as my apparently low intelligence will allow. Thank you gifts continue to flow in…(and my thank you notes continue to flow out. I have learned that I am a compulsive thanker. I can’t not thank you. Don’t try to stop me.)

The things that are being donated are really lovely…. Besides Sandy’s beautiful mittens, Jean’s handspun and the MSF (that are beginning to pale by comparison), we have an MSF tee shirt that Ben’s offered, a $20 gift certificate for Elann, generously offered by Heather, The incredible hand made knitting journal that Emma made (if you click on nothing else today, click on that and read about what went into making this book. It’s stunning.) and so much more.

Lauriegift

Do you know what that is? It’s Sock yarn from Laurie (yes…That Laurie, and yes….That yarn.) Somebody’s getting some.

Melissa donated the pattern and yarn for a Black Sheep bags pattern…it looks awesome (handpainted yarn. How could you go wrong?) and Caroline….this is gonna kill ya…Caroline went into the unruly wool room and has donated her very own pattern, and the fixings (click the yarn to make them bigger, Caroline has good taste)

Swirls

Haze

Soie

for this.

Mobius

Oh yeah, feel the love. There’s more too…but I’ll post them tommorrow, If would appear that I’m not the only one who would like to show you all how thankful we are.