It hasn't just been slackness...

Golly it's been a while...

Way back when, I posted a photo of our computer and said that it was a case of when it crashed rather than if. Turns out that when was mid-August 2007. And the computer was not alone... The electrical fairies had a wee party at our place and within the space of a couple of weeks we lost the computer, the toaster, the vacuum cleaner, the dishwasher and the stereo. The washing machine also started making ugly noises but we gave it a stern talking to and so far it's still running. The vacuum cleaner and toaster were quickly replaced but the budget wouldn't stretch any further.

Then one day, as my partner leant across the defunct and dusty computer to grab the dictionary, it made what he describes as 'an electric noise' (we are neither of us very technical). So he tried switching it on, and lo and behold, it whirred into life. Go figure. He called me immediately with the good news. "Quick! Try the dishwasher!" said I. Turned out there hadn't been a general self-healing of appliances and I had to mop the floor when I got home. But at least we had the computer back.

Except that within 24 hours, and before I could blog, or reply to emails, or check up on The Yarn Harlot, or Eclair, or Justine, or Andi, it made another very ugly electric noise and shut down again.


We kept trying it every few days but there was nothing so we gave up. Katie, however, with the sheer tenacity of a four year old deprived of the Wiggles' website, kept it up - day after day, week after week. And in December, what do you know? On she went. Since then we've had a couple of weeks where the on switch fails to respond, but mostly, we're up and running


Which is where the slackness comes in....

Partly it was that at about the same time the computer went bung, so did my knitting. In July I had agreed to go back to my old job for three months, and by August I was getting increasingly reluctant to give it up. So I didn't. Which meant less time for knitting.
Then all my patterns and pictures and inspirations were on the %^$%^&* computer, which made it tricky. I was (and, indeed, still am) three quarters of the way through my first ever adult garment (neck warmers and socks don't count) - the Sunrise Circle Jacket. But without the pattern...
So I wasn't knitting, which made a knitting blog a bit redundant. And I was also worried about tempting fate - if I started blogging surely the computer would collapse through sheer spite.
And then there was the whole issue of how to start again...
I remember (god I'm old!) back before email, when we would write letters. And if you left if too long to reply to a letter it got unbelievably awkward. First you had to apologise, which only served to remind people how slack you were. Then there was all the news you had to squeeze in, and the longer you left it, the harder it got, because there was more and more to say, which made the whole thing seem so totally daunting, and (if you were me) eventually you just gave up. This is what I've been going through...

But now I figure enough time has passed that probably no-one is even still there! And I've started knitting again, which gives me a reason to blog (although I haven't dared approach the jacket until I'm sure I haven't forgotten how to knit). So here I am. And here I hope to stay...

Gimme an S!

Finally.....

... another stumpy sock!

Rip we must

Oh poor baby yoda - the force was not strong in that one.

Twenty four rounds into the sleeve I realised that I had dropped a stitch about eight rounds before. Now I suck at picking up dropped stitches at the best of times, and quite frankly, the idea of trying to sort this out on four needles sent me straight to the gin bottle (which was empty, it being one of those days). So I decided I would have to rip the sleeve out and start again, and then I thought, oh what the hell, I'm going to rip back the entire thing. Because there were other problems, which I had been ignoring in the hopes that they would self-repair. For one thing, I had discovered that my tension on dpns is waaaaaaaay tighter than on straight needles:

As well as the difference in tension there, you can also see that when I bound of the shoulders, and knitted the neckband, I managed to leave a gaping great hole - or rather, two gaping great holes, one on each side. So it's back to the beginning. I'm still going to knit a baby yoda cardy with this wool, I'm just not going to make the same mistakes again (instead I'll make a whole lot of new exciting ones!).

In the interim (and to further delay any work on the v boring neckwarmer or the cursed sock) I started a second baby yoda - again (of course) not exactly as the pattern was written. Here is one front...

And I'm halfway up the other. Instead of garter stitch at the bottom I did six rows of scallop stitch; then I've continued the scallop stitch up the side; I've decreased much more than the pattern called for; and I've continued the scallop stitch into a band that will (hopefully) go around the back of the neck. And if I have to frog this one, I promise I will stick to the pattern next time!

After the baby yodas I want to do some thing like this gorgeous tank top. And then I'm starting to feel almost brave enough to knit an adult sized garment for myself. Almost brave enough... (Also I've just lost a whole heap of weight, and if I lose another few kilos it won't be half as daunting an idea as it was six months ago!)

It's a Knit Ranger day today - and I'm dying of jealousy. I want to be there, but my partner works every Sunday (and every Saturday) so I'm a solo Mum at the weekends, and there is no way I could take my feral children to a cafe to watch adults knit! One weekend soon I intend to hire a babysitter and head on over.

And that's me for today :)

There's a little piece of me in everything I knit

And I'm not talking about any airy-fairy, 'because I knit so much love in', piece of me - I mean this literally. I've just been sitting here pulling vast quantities of my hair out of the Baby Yoda cardigan. Does anyone else have this problem? Scientists would be able to identify every thing I've ever knitted because my hair constantly gets caught in my knitting. I thought it would improve after I had my hair cut recently, but no, I'm still knitting everything with a combination of wool and hair...

The Baby Yoda cardigan is still a way off becoming a finished object, despite being teeny tiny. For some reason - I can't remember why - I decided to try and do the Baby Yoda with as little seaming as possible. I don't know why because I don't mind seaming... it was just a passing thought that I foolishly acted on. So having knit the back and fronts as one piece, and joined the shoulders with a three needle cast-off, I have to do the sleeves on dpns.
Why would I do that to myself? I've only just learnt to manage dpns without stabbing myself (I sit there muttering 'it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye', sounding like my grandmother) and I am soooooo very sloooooow at knitting with them.
So the Baby Yoda cardigan is now in the second sock zone - a strange twilight place where very little happens. Don't anybody hold their breath...