The agony of defeat
Off to meet the lads of Stitches in Britches tonight at the MCA. I'm bringing my Olympic knitting project.
I got my butt kicked by this little section of the instructions about midway through Olympic week and had to give up my chances at medaling. There I was, cruising along on Eris, until I hit the bottom hem. There's a funny little curved piece of hem with a lovely matching swoop of cabled whatnot to match.
I knitted eight little rows and tore them out when I had the wrong number of stitches. Undaunted, I reknit them. Again, the wrong number of stitches. So I knit them again. And still had the wrong number of stitches.
The next day, I was flying to Boston with my best friend Carrie and her two small children (2 years and 5 mos.) We were visiting two more friends of ours with an 8-month-old -- I was going along to play Tensing Norgay to her Edmund Hillary. There was no way the sweater was getting finished, not with this little bit of knitting that refused to be figured out and two sleeves to go.
Rationally, I understood that if I couldn't figure out this funny little bit of curved cabled knitting sitting on my couch with a cup of Mexican hot chocolate to hand, I definitely could not figure it out sitting next to a toddler. I took a sock.
In my duties as calabash aunt, I exposed the squids to yarn. We stopped in at a shop in Somerville, and while Carrie occupied the youth, one asleep in a kid-backpack, and the other happily being spun on a desk chair while holding a small stuffed sheep, I shopped very fast.
(Got some seriously girly pink yarn and two hanks of roving for the Fool.)
See, when I called him the night before, he told me that on Saturday, he planned to make two stops en route to a gig in Wisconsin. He was going to take 15 minutes to buy a pair of brown shoes for work (He claims guys can buy shoes in 15 minutes and women can't) and then he was stopping by The Fold.
"You are?" I said.
"I thought I might. Do you need anything?"
"No," I said, "I've got enough yarn to knit. What are you shopping for?"
"Some fuschia sock yarn and, um, maybe something else."
"Something else?"
"Well, I sort of got that promotion at work, and there's a bonus with it, and I thought I might take a little bit of that money and spend it on something for myself. Something big."
"That's a great idea," I said, imagining that he might buy enough yarn to make a sweater, say. "You should. What are you getting at the Fold that's big....waitaminnit ... are you buying a spinning wheel!"
"I thought I'd look," he said, a little defensively.
We have this running joke. If one of us takes a bite of something exceptionally delicious, like, say, a piece of homemade blueberry pie, we say, "Oh, it's not very good. You'd better let me eat it and save you the disappointment."
He called later with a full report from his trip to the Fold.
"You wouldn't like it very much," he said. "It was full of beautiful hand-dyed yarns and there's a big dog who follows you around and pokes you with his nose."
I adore big dogs. Almost more than homemade blueberry pie.
No, there's no wheel yet ... but we talked about it and agreed that if this was something he really wanted to look into, he could do some research and maybe after St. Patrick's Month (when he has a lot of gigs and I am a fiddle widow), we would go back out to Marengo and he could try out some wheels -- and I could pet the dog.
And now that I am back from Boston, I figured out what I was doing wrong, andEris is working out right and I'm on the first sleeve.
I got my butt kicked by this little section of the instructions about midway through Olympic week and had to give up my chances at medaling. There I was, cruising along on Eris, until I hit the bottom hem. There's a funny little curved piece of hem with a lovely matching swoop of cabled whatnot to match.
I knitted eight little rows and tore them out when I had the wrong number of stitches. Undaunted, I reknit them. Again, the wrong number of stitches. So I knit them again. And still had the wrong number of stitches.
The next day, I was flying to Boston with my best friend Carrie and her two small children (2 years and 5 mos.) We were visiting two more friends of ours with an 8-month-old -- I was going along to play Tensing Norgay to her Edmund Hillary. There was no way the sweater was getting finished, not with this little bit of knitting that refused to be figured out and two sleeves to go.
Rationally, I understood that if I couldn't figure out this funny little bit of curved cabled knitting sitting on my couch with a cup of Mexican hot chocolate to hand, I definitely could not figure it out sitting next to a toddler. I took a sock.
In my duties as calabash aunt, I exposed the squids to yarn. We stopped in at a shop in Somerville, and while Carrie occupied the youth, one asleep in a kid-backpack, and the other happily being spun on a desk chair while holding a small stuffed sheep, I shopped very fast.
(Got some seriously girly pink yarn and two hanks of roving for the Fool.)
See, when I called him the night before, he told me that on Saturday, he planned to make two stops en route to a gig in Wisconsin. He was going to take 15 minutes to buy a pair of brown shoes for work (He claims guys can buy shoes in 15 minutes and women can't) and then he was stopping by The Fold.
"You are?" I said.
"I thought I might. Do you need anything?"
"No," I said, "I've got enough yarn to knit. What are you shopping for?"
"Some fuschia sock yarn and, um, maybe something else."
"Something else?"
"Well, I sort of got that promotion at work, and there's a bonus with it, and I thought I might take a little bit of that money and spend it on something for myself. Something big."
"That's a great idea," I said, imagining that he might buy enough yarn to make a sweater, say. "You should. What are you getting at the Fold that's big....waitaminnit ... are you buying a spinning wheel!"
"I thought I'd look," he said, a little defensively.
We have this running joke. If one of us takes a bite of something exceptionally delicious, like, say, a piece of homemade blueberry pie, we say, "Oh, it's not very good. You'd better let me eat it and save you the disappointment."
He called later with a full report from his trip to the Fold.
"You wouldn't like it very much," he said. "It was full of beautiful hand-dyed yarns and there's a big dog who follows you around and pokes you with his nose."
I adore big dogs. Almost more than homemade blueberry pie.
No, there's no wheel yet ... but we talked about it and agreed that if this was something he really wanted to look into, he could do some research and maybe after St. Patrick's Month (when he has a lot of gigs and I am a fiddle widow), we would go back out to Marengo and he could try out some wheels -- and I could pet the dog.
And now that I am back from Boston, I figured out what I was doing wrong, andEris is working out right and I'm on the first sleeve.
Comments
I love big ole dogs, too, one day I'll have a giant dog to ride around with me and the 3 kids all over the place.
I'm glad you figured out the wavy cable thing - it's SO frustrating when you can't figure out the one little thing that makes a world of difference in a pattern, and SUCH a relief when it finally clicks!
Buh-buh-buh... *snivel* But I wanna go toooooooo! *dork*
And they have a big dog? That's it. We're moving to Marengo.
I like April's comment about getting a spinning wheel for two. That was pretty cool.
Is it bad when The Fold=STR and Marengo=STR to me?
Having recently moved far away from the South Eastern most side of the "Chicagoland Area", i have to keep up with folks back "home". Heh!
When a wheel shows up, could we have lots of pictures so those of us without one can drool??
Congrats to The Fool on his "sort of getting that promotion at work" ;)
~Suz~