I just wrote this big huge post about how it was that the Kauni is driving me insane because I am knitting the whole thing twice, in increments and whammo….my blogging software quit and took the entry with it and now…I am re-writing the post about re-knitting. (Damn it all. I hate pathetic fallacy.) Perhaps it is just going to be that sort of day. Fine. Fine. Fine. I have a chocolate drawer. I know how to cope.
Back to the sweater. I love this sweater and I think it’s going to be a treat when I’m done, whenever that is. I can’t seem to knit it in a straight line. All parts are taking two tries. Cast on, don’t get gauge, rip out and cast on again. Knit for a while, discover that you cast on the wrong number because you tried to get sassy with the sizing, cast on again. Knit for a while, miss a pattern row, rip back and re-knit. Decide a sleeve is too tight, rip back and re knit. It’s batty, and it’s simply not improving. Remember the last time I showed you a picture of the Kauni and proudly proclaimed how my strategy to get the sleeves the same colours had worked?
Yeah. Look closely. Duh. (This is what happens when one is cocky.) Ripped a cuff, added a repeat, re-knit the ribbing.
Next up, neckband. Picked up the stitches, knit the neckband, realized I hadn’t picked up the right number and who cares anyway because what was I thinking when I picked up that stitch dipping all the way down into the pattern?
Ripped it back, re-knit. Much better.
Cut the front steeks (luckily, there’s only one way to get that done) and picked up the stitches for the button bands. Knit the button bands, realized that I hadn’t picked up enough stitches and the thing was pulling in. Ripped back the button bands, re-knit them like the knitter of experience that I am.
Turned my attention to the other button band (on which I picked up the right number, since the pain from the first button band was painfully fresh)
and proceeded to knit seven of the worst looking buttonholes in the history of humanity.
What are those? Is that any sort of elegant way to put a hole in a piece of knitting? They all suck that badly, though not at all consistantly.
I have miraculously found a way to make seven different, yet equally horrific buttonholes. If I were another sort of woman than these buttonholes would be the first against the wall when the revolution came. As it is, I am going to dig up Sweaters From Camp and see if Meg Swansen can pull my arse out of the fire again. I do believe there is some discussion of how to do a buttonhole in corrugated ribbing in there somewhere. Before I do that however, I am going to spend a little quality time with my drum carder and the clean wool for Joe’s Gansey. It’s Tuesday during a finishing phase, I can scarcely ignore it.
PS. Jayme-the-wonder-publicist (who did get her socks and was photographed enjoying them at the office by a co-worker – see her holding my book? Once a publicist…..always a publicist.)
is, despite the bribe pictured above, going to phone me up and shriek (I got an email this morning in ALL CAPS) if I don’t remember to tell you that I am speaking at the Borders in Marlton, New Jersey on Friday the 19th of October (that’s the Friday before Rhinebeck) at 7:00 in the evening. (Please follow the link and RSVP if you are coming. ) Then, I’m doing the big author signing thing at Rhinebeck on the Sunday at 10: 00, when there will be me and Alison, Heather, Ann and Kay, Clara, Sharon, Kristin, Judith and Carol all be signing our books.
After that I’ll be speaking at 1:00, in Jayme’s continuing mission to have me give this speech to New Yorkers until they are so sick of it and me that they start spitting in my coffee. (Why, I ask you, can she not be obsessed with having me speak to Mel?) Never mind. We’ll have a grand time. How can we not? It’s freakin’ Rhinebeck – and, the featured breed is the Blue Faced Leicester. I love those guys.
PPS The Mystery Stole is blocking.
PPPS. I really hope my reward yarn comes today.