finally, after months and months, i’m back to my poetry in stitches sweater. when last you saw this knit, i’d done most of the body and had just blocked the center panel, only to realize, like many a knitter, that row gauge is not my friend. a few months later, with the help of a braver knitter (mg!), i frogged the whole darn thing. fast foward to the beginning of november when i finally bought some size 0s and 1s – don’t know what happened to the earlier pairs i had – and swatched. oh wait, no, i didn’t swatch. bad andrea.
ah well, so far the gauge is looking good. i initially swatched this yarn on size 4s, 3s, and 2s, so i have a pretty good idea of its’ expanding qualities when blocked. the pattern asks for 25 stitches and 31 rows for every 4”, and i’m getting roughly 30 stitches and 34 rows. yup, that sounds very off, no? i’m not very worried though because a) i know this yarn and its’ deceptive blocking ways, and b) size 2 needles clearly don’t cut it, as evidenced by the earlier sad frogging, and c) there’s a good ten inches of ease in the pattern, so 8 inches instead won’t hurt my feelings. and length wise, it’s no problem-o as there’s no waist shaping, etc. to get in the way.
oh, and what’s all these pics mean? well, i joined the round, and yup, i twisted it without realizing until a good thirty rows later. ahem. so, first i tried dropping down to the join and seeing if i could twist something there that would fix the problem. i’d read something about that before, but couldn’t for the life of me figure it out. i then picked up all those stitches, grumble grumble, and decided, what the heck, it’s got to be cut later anyhow, i might as well do it now. so i did, and then calmly re-joined, without a twist, and continued knitting. the stickiness of the yarn is saving me, as i really should have crocheted on either side of the cut before grabbing the scissors, but hey, it was 2 am, the witching hour for all, especially knitters. anyhow, crisis averted and the knitting continues, which is the most important thing.
so chatty about the knitting, huh. on other fronts, things are still tough but life just keeps moving. thanks for all the nice words sent my way ~ we’re getting over the shell-shocked phase, which i think is a good thing, that’s not a fun place to be. as for what’s next, oh who knows. so, for today, knitting knitting and more knitting, plus some driving and sitting and waiting, oh and some spinning. see?
happy wednesday to you all, you nice people ~
p.s. that pattern i’m knitting, the black and white you see there, is called lice. i don’t actually see the little critters jumping around, no fears.
