Sunday, August 20, 2006

I'm not always Sisyphus (progress does get made from time to time)



The Circular Shetland Shawl from "A Gathering of Lace" has forced me to become a clone of Sisyphus. I have to re-knit the "Madeira Lace" section over again. Sigh! Still, a lot of my other projects have been coming along better. The Peacock Shawl is up to row 127 but is too crunched up on the needles to take a picture of right now. The Mountain Pines is up to row 35 of the boarder pattern and is looking pretty good. Last, but not least, I have finally completed one full repeat of the WRS! Now to do it 5 more times and then end with rows 1-40 for the center. I've been checking out different sites and there are a number of people working with this pattern. Some of this knitters are really going flat out and knitting up a storm while some others are more my speed. Quite a few are using the Silk which I could not manage to knit well with. I'm not giving up on that silk, just not using it for the WRS. I tested my merino singles that I was spinning to see if they would hold up to knitting by themselves. Nix, Nope, Nein. It's not bad, but not strong enough to knit on it's own. I will end up plying it into a nice lace weight yarn. So will I give it up? Hah! I have been checking out sites to buy shetland wool:)

I did take a break in order to catch up on some reading. I'm savoring the latest book by one of my very favorite authors, Lilith Saintcrow. It's the second book in her urban fantasy series with Necromancer, Dante Valentine, "Dead Man Rising". Dante is not just armed on the cover, she has a whip,gun and a sword and she knows how to use them darn it! Don't piss her off! Just love it! I also picked up a nice new edition of selected poems by Edna St. Vincent Millay. It's part of the "American Poets Project". I love her work, always have. I even have a few very lovely first editions of her published poetry. This way I feed both my violent and gentle sides!

Have a wonderful evening!

The "Old Yeller" option (my sisters cure for big mistakes)

There are times where a piece of knitting must be extensively frogged back or ditched entirely because of terminal FUBAR. My sister recently referred to this as the "Old Yeller" option or her less politically correct comment of "Sometimes you just have to shoot the horse." Yes, we are mixing metaphors, but what the heck, it's my blog! I had started the Shetland Circular Shawl from "A Gathering of Lace" months ago and stopped. Why? Because there was his honking huge error that I found about 1/3 of the way down the almost finished shawl. Usually I just bite the bullet and rip, but I was trying to do the limbo and "fix" it. Needless to say, I couldn't repair it. So there it sat on the needles, moldering away until a midnight hot-flash had me up and ripping it. Sorry Old Yeller. These comments may be too harsh for all of the lace knitters out there, but this is a part of knitting. Some Homer Simpson mistakes may stay, the rest must go.

Sleep Deprived but Happier!