Back at the Drawing Board

First off, if anyone is still listening, thanks!

I know I've been oddly silent for quite a while.  Before I get started on why I finally fired my blogwriting skills back up, I feel like I owe at least a minor explanation.

The short answer is, life here in ShadowLand has been in a state of turmoil for about 16 months or so.

Everyone in the house has had his or her share of drama and challenges.  And in June of this year, we moved -- the most challenge-ridden move I've heard about in a while.  The fun didn't stop there, and we're still under the lash.  And I just don't like blogging about the unpleasant stuff until I can find the humor in it.  And I don't like blogging about personal stuff that isn't MY stuff.  So, I didn't blog.

I also didn't seem to be knitting much.  And that really wasn't because all my knitting was packed (are you nuts? of course it wasn't ALL packed).

Back to the point.  Finally, whatever block there was that was impeding my knitting and designing fu seems to have given up.

I now have all sorts of things on the needles.  The ever-present socks (which spend a lot of time hiding from me); a cardigan for me, which is almost done, (but will take forever to finish because I decided that a sewn hem was the way to bind off, and I can't do that for long w/o going nuts);  a pair of fingerless mitss for a friend whose hands get cold; and (now that the cardigan sleeves have freed up my matching 16" circs)  A Weasely sweater for Kitty -- who shall be known as The Artist from now on (yep.  It's a nice baggy 44" of sweater, miraculously wedged onto a 16" circular needle), and -- the subject of this post: a hat I'm designing for a dear friend who suffers from Sjogren's Syndrome.  Sjogren's attacks in various unfriendly ways -- one of which includes making your scalp so sensitive that a slight breeze moving the hair on your head becomes painful.  Dear Friend finally gave up and shaved her head.  But Winter is Coming.  Clearly, hats needed to be made.

I thought I was designing one thing, but discovered that I'm designing a tam or a beret with a cabled band and colorwork in the rest of the hat (and likely more cables, but we're not there yet.

This is good.  What's not good is discovering two rows later that you made several errors in the knitting.  I thought I'd found one about 1/3 of the way back-- the pattern is 6 stitches in the main color, and 4 stitches in the contrast, but right there, there are seven stitches in the main color.  So, I started tinking back the row and a half .. but wait -- there... there are only four stitches in the main color here, tink further grumbling "What WAS I doing.'

I tink some more, and clear the silly four stitch run -- but something is still off. 

Oh, duh. I actually had made a mistake in the fourth stitch in the round! So the whole thing was thrown off from the get go.

Back I tink some more.

This is moderately sane behavior -- well for a knitter anyway.  

What isn't sane is that I found the error just before putting the knitting down to go to bed.  Rather than putting the knitting down, I stayed up to fix it.  And then, feeling oddly uncomfortable with being further behind than I was before I found the error, felt compelled to at least re-knit the offending round (190 sts worth).

Why?  why do we knitters do this?  Aren't we more prone to errors as the clock ticks past today into tomorrow?  Why can't we just rest on having found the error, and come back fresh in the morning?  Or at least rest on having gotten back to where things were right?  Doesn't it occur to us that trying to get back to at least where we were when we started going backwards might just put in more errors to find in the morning?

I guess we have to admit -- stubbornness has just got to be one of the character traits that makes up a knitter.  Or at least tenacity.

I'll be going to bed soon, really I will.  Just let me finish these two rounds.....

Comments

[Melissa]

I so understand about fixing the knitting right away. I had my eyes dilated yesterday and I still decided to try and work on the fingering lace shawl rather than the worsted garter shawl. I made a mistake. I could see well enough to know I'd screwed up, but not well enough to fix it. I had to put it way uncorrected. Then my nerves decided to complain after I could see and smaller needles were painful to hold. So it's been bugging me for just over 24 hours that there is a mistake in my knitting. Hope life is improving and that your knitting mojo has returned. It sucks when it goes walk-about.

[The Divine (though blogless) Elizabeth]

Well lookie who showed up in my blog tracker thingy again! Welcome Back!