I'm Sure I Can Make It Stretch

There is something about the violet yarn that makes me lie to myself.  I think I may be in a destructive relationship with my knitting.  I keep telling myself that I can make it work if I'll just change.  Change my pattern, change my needles, change my rate of decrease.  I will make a sweater, damn it, I just have to try harder.  It's totally me, not the yarn.  It's certainly not the fact that there isn't enough yarn.  Nope.  That's not it.  I haven't struggled along this far, only to run out at the bitter end.  The Knitting Gods are benevolent and kind.  They would never betray my fealty that way.

I made the circular yoke cardigan from the bottom up, in spite of knowing that top-down would be better for a person whose yarn supply is dubious.  When I got to the armpits, I attached sleeves that were only about 1" long, with provisional castons.  Then I finished the upper part of the sweater, and all the placket business.  The yarn that was left (the better part of one skein) I weighed and divided in half.  Then I took out the provisional CO and worked the first sleeve about as long as I dared to, but here's the sick and twisted part:  I absolutely must match the lower edge treatment at the cuff.  But the lower edge is a lacy scallop which is made from the bottom up, and the sleeve, as established, is being worked from the top down. 

Without breaking the working yarn from the sleeve edge, I laid the whole thing aside and pulled the opposite end of the yarn out of the center of the ball.  Then I worked a cuff edge from the bottom up with it, knowing that if I ran short of cuff yarn, I could always unravel some of the sleeve at the other end of the strand.  Which, miraculously, I did not have to do.  I had exactly enough to make the cuff and graft it to the lower edge of the sleeve.  Although I will tell you that I had to kitchener that B@#^$tard on three times to get the graft right.  Did I mention this is all in the round, on DPNs?  Yep.  I grafted 2 pieces of circular knitting together, which amounted to 6 DPNs.  Three Times.

It worked perfectly.  Except that, as predicted, I didn't have enough yarn to make a full-length sleeve.  I have perfect 3/4 sleeve.  And I hate 3/4 sleeves.  This may not be my healthiest knitting relationship.  The sweater and I may have to go for counseling, but I'm sure I can change if it will just give me one more chance.

One List is Very Like Another

See this and other fabulous comics on Married to the Sea

When you hate to cook as much as I do, going to the grocery store falls somewhere on the enjoyment scale between a face full of acid and bamboo shoots under the fingernails.  But loathe it though I do, food procurement is a necessary part of my glamorous life, at least until I can figure out how to make my children do it.  In order to manage the shopping, I employ various coping mechanisms, such as trying to suck it up and be grateful that I CAN get food, unlike many less fortunate souls on this earth.  Another of my strategies is my personalized "Grocery Store Spreadsheet".

The Grocery Store Spreadsheet (GSS) is the product of years of research, and not a little OCD.  The GSS is a magical device which allows me to spend the absolute minimum of time at the store.  It groups the items on my list based on their physical location in the store (yes, I had to actually map the aisles of my grocery store) so that I can shop as efficiently as possible, minimizing my exposure to mysterious foodstuffs and dumbass fumes.

Each week, I populate the cells of the GSS with whatever items I can no longer avoid getting, then save that version as a reference for what I'm planning to cook.  I frequently panic when I step into the kitchen and forget what I'm supposed to do, so referring to the GSS helps me pull it together, at least for as long as it takes to boil a noodle.

So much a precision instrument is my GSS that I have proclaimed it my Favorite Spreadsheet Ever (Oh, sure; like you don't have a favorite spreadsheet?).  When I need to create a new spreadsheet, I often haul out the GSS and use it as a template for whatever else I might be doing, just because I like the look of it, and I don't have to tinker with it as much as I would a blank document.

Such was the case yesterday, when I sat down to organize the project ideas for my new book.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention: I have a new book to write.  Yay!  It's about hats.  Crazy hats, silly hats, cuddly hats, hats you never thought of.  Can't imagine why they wanted ME for such an assignment. 

I cracked open the GSS and started repopulating fields from groceries to hat ideas, and the sorting feature took over, just as it is supposed to do.  Which meant that "Giant Squid" found its way to the Seafood heading.  "Cherry Pie" naturally sought the Bakery area.  And "Sushi", surprising no one, went straight to the Deli.  Something about this collision of two worlds tickled me so much that I kind of fell down a rabbit hole.  I started to test the GSS by dropping other ideas into it.  Turns out that "Petulance" is a vegetable, "Ferocity" belongs to canned goods, and "Ennui" can be found in the pharmacy.

I think I'm going to try categorizing people I know in the GSS next.  I'm willing to bet that at least 3 people I love will be located in my grocers' freezer.

A Sweater Goes Sideways, An Arrow Hits Its Mark, And One Other Thing

I don't know what makes me think that I'm special, but I can't believe it:  I lied to myself about gauge.  Totally LIED.  "Yes," I said, "I can make that sweater at a smaller gauge, but in a larger size, and it will totally fit".  "And you know what else?" I dissembled, "There's no such thing as ROW gauge to worry about, either!"  I nodded my wool fume-addled head and cast on.  Boy, was that knitting fast.  Boy, did I notice that it was really really small, too.  But my inner liar had me so hoodwinked that I actually got all the way to the bottom of a top-down raglan before summoning the guts to try it on.  Sucker.

I mean, negative ease is one thing, but this is ferociously wrong.  It's 50 items in the 10-or-less lane wrong.  It's asking a Priest on a date wrong.  Get a load of where those poor bust darts landed.

It's comforting, in a way, to be reminded that I still get to screw up.  Man, what a rookie move.  And then, of course, I had to decide whether to finish the thing and give it to Lindsay, or whether I should just gut it and start over.  The thought of being taunted by this yarn that I love so much every time my adorable 14-year-old prances by was more than I could bear (I know: Mother Of The Year), so in the end, I hitched the whole thing to my ball winder and let-er-rip.  Cathartic, that.  I've started over, this time using a little trick I call "Math", and working from the bottom up, as God intended.  And it's going to be a circular yoke, too, which I like better than raglans, for no good reason at all.

While I was distracted by string (i.e.,"conscious"), my youngest child started to grow up.  Campbell received his Arrow Of Light last weekend:

For those who don't know, the Arrow is the highest honor a Cub Scout can receive.  Earning one is known to Cubbies as "Crossing Over", because after achieving it, a Cub becomes a Boy Scout, and joins a whole new troop.  For some reason, I was emotionally unprepared to see my smally publicly make this transition.  He's been working toward it since he was six years old, so more than half of his life has been spent thinking about what this day would be like for him.  I (Mother Of The Year) failed to anticipate the flood of tears that crashed over me once that arrow was finally his.  I do not remember authorizing any of this "growing up" nonsense, and I'd like to state for the record that I'll be putting a stop to it, henceforth.

In unrelated news, I'm pleased to announce that Dicentra Designs has exactly three (3) unclaimed Thistle Stole Kits for sale to the public.  The first three requests received by dicentradesigns@msn.com will be their happy recipients!  Kits are $85 each, plus shipping.  Let the bloodbath commence.