I decided yesterday to just go for it and complete the knitting of the one project that I seem to be keen to knit on. I picked up my Hamsa scarf and knitted away. And then it happened…
ASIDE: Since I gave up work to run away to Scotland and live the good simple life funds have been somewhat limited. Our new lifestyle includes a conscious decision to wear things out. This is my excuse for constantly looking like a scarecrow, though the real reason is no doubt one of comfort. Yesterday I was wearing my most favourite t-shirt, one that I bought in Edinburgh on holiday about fifteen years ago when I had run out of clean clothes after ten days backpacking around Scotland. It’s the best t-shirt ever and I love it to bits. Literally. It’s dropping apart, hastened no doubt by the bout of hyperthyroidism (which seemed to affect my body Ph and many of my clothes went into holes over last winter.) Not to put too fine a point on it, this t-shirt sports extra good under-arm ventilation.
… I pulled my needle out from under my arm to turn my work around… only the needle stayed put, hooked into the holes in my t-shirt, and just the stitches came away. Of course, I had long since dispensed with my lifelines, as the pattern turns out to be quite simple and not prone to faults (I end almost every row with the right stitch count!) Pulling with quite a jerk, the stitches ran…
I picked up what I could and then tinked back a few rows to make sure that all was well. I knitted on. I examined my work and found an error. I tinked back. I knitted on. The error was still there. I tinked back… I tinked back… and so it went on all afternoon and evening. I kept eliminating the error, knitting on, then finding the error was still there I repeated the process again. And again. And again. In fact, I made no headway at all after lunch yesterday and ended up putting my work to one side to deal with today.
Today I tinked back seven rows, and carried on again and all went absolutely as it should do. I must assume that I was so rattled by the awful realisation of pulling half my stitches off the needle that I just couldn’t regain my stride yesterday.
Anyway, one lesson learned: never think you’re too clever to need a lifeline. Ripping is so much faster than tinking and a lifeline could save hours of work and endless counting.
Spinning: plying the Giggle is taking far longer than expected. I managed two skeins before lunch. About a third remains to be plied. At long last I think I may call myself a spinner – as I do seem to have produced something akin to sock yarn! Seriously, I look close to hitting the 400yds:4 ozs arena. On the down side, I could have done a better job of separating the colours in the roving as the final result looks rather grey and muddy and not at all what I had planned. I shall put a positive spin on it and call it “subtle.”
BSJ: making good progress, and I began the neck shaping last night. That puts me at around the 2/3rds mark, I reckon.
Things are a little fraught chez Woolgatherer and set to get worse still as the car gets MOT tested next week. The sheer complexity of doing this from a base on one of the outer islands is beyond all normal comprehension and the new test rules do not help one jot. The ferry company were less than positive regarding an enquiry about paying the penalty if a booked passage for the car is subject to late cancellation. Let us hope that the car does not have to remain in Kirkwall while we lug the supermarket shopping home on foot… not that we can afford to buy much food, we just had to increase the monthly payment for domestic fuel oil (with a bang!) The world’s going to hell in a handcart and it’s biting into my fibre budget 🙂