Leftie Shawl from Knot Just Knits - Day 5

It always takes longer...

Sigh.  This is going to take a while.  I thought I had it plotted out into six equal segments, but I didn't take into consideration that these last rows are three times as long as my first rows--and as such take three times as long to complete.  I'm working hard here.

I don't know what it is about these short row "leaf" trims, but I only get them right about half time.  I know enough about short rows to make them all look reasonably similar, but I have to say it really bugs me that I can't  manage a 14-row repeat accurately.  I should be able to handle this, you know? I like to think of myself as having a decent level of competency.

One thing is for sure:  this is a show-stopper.

 I'm asked about it every time I pull it out of my knitting bag in public, and I've run across several people who have either made one or have one on their needles.  Invariably, the comments run to, "Oh, I could do that in _____ [insert yarn here]."  

It's true.  I've dreamed up half a dozen yarn combinations myself from stuff I own just in the time I was knitting.  With the Color Affection shawl, I kept seeing yarn I wanted to buy to make another.  Somehow--maybe it's just the subliminal suggestion of the name (leftie, leftovers, etc)--I keep thinking of yarn I already own to make another Leftie.  

Intentional?  Who knows.  Welcome?  You bet.  Anything that eats into my massive stash is a positive project!

Knit-Along: Elemental Changes Scarf from Aylin’s Woolgatherer - Day 4

The Long Unwinding Week...

Whoa! Where’d Allie go?

Let’s just say it’s been “one of those weeks.” Sorry about that.

For starters, one needs to be careful what words one puts together. “Bestselling Author?” That’s a pair I wouldn’t mind inviting into my life. “Glamorous Lifestyle?” That’d be okay, too (if unlikely). But I should know better than to put “catastrophic error” and “knitting” together out into the universe. The next day...the very next day, mind you...I found myself staying up late to rip out and fix almost an hour’s worth of knitting on this section. Not fun. And the whole time I’m hearing my own words “But I’m not likely to pull out 15 rows to fix a non-catastrophic error. If it’s really going to mess things up, I’ll fix it.” Because it really was about 15 rows that I had to rip out. Ugh.

Life goes on, however, and during this challenging week I managed to finish section C and it’s subsequent repeat (hear Allie say, “oh, now I get why that second set of numbers is there!). It’s looking pretty spiffy. I took a photo of the scarf held up against the light so you can get a good look at the design.

Today, because we have workmen coming tomorrow, I had to do The Enormous Task. This enormous effort was to sort, organize, edit, and store my stash. Yikes. Logistics aside, I was unprepared for how emotional a task this was. Even though some of it was tiny scraps and icky yarn, it felt just plain WRONG to trash it. I actually couldn’t stand it after a point, and fished back into the trash bag to collect a bagful of usable scraps, sure SOMEONE would be able to make use of the stuff.

And then there were the UFO’s--the Un-Finished Objects. There were two--two huge old ones--that I knew, intellectually, needed to go. Not ripped out and stored, not stashed away until I had gobs of free time, just GO. One was an obscenely ugly sweater (no, I will not post a photo...and it’s long gone now so don’t ask), and the other was a Zimmermann Pie-R-Squared shawl that was such a somber collection of black and grey it belonged on a victorian widow. A two-item episode of “What Not to Knit.”

Do you know I had to have my husband stand over me while I inserted them into the trash bag? And it was a physical discomfort--an actual physical sensation--to send them away? I am not a hoarder. I hold most of my possessions (okay, maybe not my Blackberry) loosely. I put my good china in the dishwasher. I wear my good jewelry. But I was blindsided by how nuts I got over the process of paring down my yarn stash.

So why am I laughing?

I have a date to go to Stitches Midwest--the regions largest yarn show--on Friday.