Vile Worm (or 'A Warning')

It happens. You’ve been knitting a few years, you think you know a thing or two about colour choice, about the particular qualities of different fibres, about the behaviour of stitch patterns. You know all about gauge, about swatching; you are familiar with the inner workings of Ravelry; you can cable without a cable needles like it ain’t no thang; you are so confident in your ability to matchmake a pattern and a yarn that you occasionally daydream about setting up an internet dating service for the two (‘more couples happily knit together than any other site!’). So you choose a hat pattern, choose two contrasting colours, choose to unfurl your knitting smugly on public transport.

If you recognise yourself in any of the above, then Reader, BEWARE, because if my example is anything to go by, your knitterly pride is heading for a nasty fall. These are the perfect set of circumstances for you to create a TERRIFYING CYBER-CARNIVAL-SPACE WORM HEAD-EATER!

AAAAAAAAARGH!!!

Now, I don’t mean to denigrate the pattern: the designer’s photos of the hat look perfectly lovely, and Saz’s version of it (ravlink) is beautiful, but my version of it sucks! Oh my goodness, I can’t remember the last time I created anything so vile.  The sturdy garter stitch means it doesn’t slouch down like you’d hope a beanie would, but stands straight up, for a cone-head effect (seen above); my colour choice, which I envisaged looking cool and urban, somehow turned out garish and childish: in short, it’s just a vortex of wrong. I acknowledge that the lack of slouch might get better with blocking, but I’m not going to block it. If Sci-Fi has taught me anything, it is that when a mad stripy space-worm tries to eat your head, you do not give it a scented bath and leave it to repose upon a towel, you DESTROY IT, screaming ‘DIE, VILE WORM, DIE!'.

So knitters, have a happy, but vigilant, Easter. Make sure that hubris does not creep into your stitches. Check yo selves before you wreck yo selves.

Maybe I should just work on expanding my hands

Look at this mitten in progress. Isn't it delightful? The pattern is the Squirrel Sampler Mittens, an endearing folksy design from Hello Yarn that extends to little acorns across the palm:

Aw! The braids, the picot hem, the yarn (that colourwork stalwart, Jamieson's Spindrift) - what's not to love?

Except that it's MASSIVE.

Yes, I was on my way to another Monster Mitten. I did check the gauge, but evidently not very carefully. I was knitting these on 2mm needles - that's 0 in US terms, not so much a number as a yelp of pain - and I think I was in denial that I might need something smaller. Fail, fail, fail. I'm going to work on my Alhambra scarf for a while and sulk. Hmph.

Cream-crackered Crafting

Late-night crafting and me do not mix, it seems. I had been feeling so smug about Kingscot: 'Why would anyone knit it in pieces when it's such a piece of cake doing it seamlessly?' I thought to my smug self, smugly. I finished the armhole decreases last night and stopped to check my stitch count. Both fronts were A-OK. The back... hang on a second, that can't be right, let me count that again. No, I still appeared to be short not one, not two but TEN STITCHES. Part of me was upset and more than a little mystified. Another part - the fearless, nocturnal adventurer part - saw this as an exciting opportunity to do what this blog's name suggests: to drop stitches, and hook them back to the path of righteousness.

It was rather enjoyable watching stitches that had been bound together reassuming their own separate identities, as I crocheted them back up the rungs of the dropped-stitch ladder. I was nearing the end of my knitting emergency rescue, when I glanced down to double check just how many stitches I should have. And saw that I had been looking at the wrong bit of the pattern. And had had the right number of stitches to begin with. So I had to drop all of my newly-created stitches and re-decrease them, by which time I think I may have been wielding my hook with more than a little frustration, resulting in this slight pulling of stitches. Stitches which had of course been totally fine to begin with.

So this evening I decided to change crafting tack and get better acquainted with - or, rather, introduce myself to - my sewing machine.

Other than giving a foot pedal a nervous little tap in the shop where I chose my machine, I hadn't done any sewing since my last Home Economics class when I was about 13, and even then I wasn't really paying attention (out of laziness masquerading as ersatz feminism). Since I have started perusing awesome sewing blogs, such as 'So, Zo...' (she made pants!) and Gertie's New Blog for Better Sewing, and have become aware of the repository of gorgeousness that is Colette Patterns I have been longing to learn. I bought myself some inexpensive muslin, and screwed my courage to the sticking-place. A cautious straight stitch went fairly smoothly. I tried seaming two pieces together; also ok. This sewing malarkey was not as tricky as I thought! Then the curvaceous form of #26 caught my eye. I popped on my satin stitch foot...

... with a bit less success...

I was a little indignant at that woeful, shrivelled leaf. #26 wasn't going to get the better of me. I tried again... I'm almost too embarrassed to show the result.

I forgot to drop my presser foot, and my fabric was sucked down into the hell-mouth of the needle-plate. Instead of a playful leaf, I basically created a monstrous muslin arsehole. There was a hairy (maybe not a good word to use so close to arsehole) moment when I wasn't sure if I'd ever be able to liberate the offending scrap from my machine. Just as I managed to unwedge it, my desk lamp flickered out, plunging me into stygian gloom. Curses.

So it hasn't been a very productive couple of nights. I know I'm more liable to make mistakes when I'm exhausted, but then it can be hard to find time during the day... have you found a solution to this? I'd also love to hear about other people's nocturnal crafting mishaps, to stop me feeling so sorry for myself.

Seeing red

Remember that red Cascade 220 wool I got in London a while ago? It has been slowly morphing into the Lush and Lacy cardigan by the Sweaterbabe, which I have wanted to knit for ages. I knew I would have to make some substantial changes to the pattern, namely:

- The smallest size is too big for me

- I wanted to use a different lace pattern

- I decided to knit the body in one piece

To take advantage of this seamlessness, I wanted to put something where the seam would have been, and settled on a little bit of faggoting. 

I must admit, I felt a little bit smug as I steamed up the body, merrily faggoting away, up to just before the peplum ruffle at the back. I glanced at the instructions for the fronts to see if I had to work any pocket magic at this point... and saw that I had missed the vital instruction to decrease every few rows. Sigh. Rip, rip, rip, re-knit, re-knit, re-knit...

Hooray! Peplum ruffle! Finally I can get down to some serious honeybees. But wait... does this ruffle look a little off-centre? Let me just check... Oh. 13 stitches on one side of the ruffle, 15 stitches on the other. 

At this point I saw red. Yes, this latest error might not actually take all that long to fix, but I could not escape the fact that this thing was trying to get me, mocking my hubristic idea that  I could navigate my way through all of these at once...

... with only this paltry excuse for a compass.

I'm sick of red. I'm putting red down for the moment. I'm going to knit... the Something Red cardigan by Wendy Bernard. In yellow!