somehow, i have angered the knitting gods

I swear. I don't know what I've done to piss them off, or why the hell I deserve such punishment, but the knitting gods are smiting me with every possible bit of bad luck they can manage. Let's take a look at my Stripy Sweater of Intimidation!

--The ribbing is 24 rows, 12 in color A and 12 in color B. I knit 12 in color A and 14 in color B. Not a terribly big deal, and I'm replicating that error on all the pieces. Kind of annoying that I cannot frigging count.

--I then realized that the stripes are supposed to be 20 rows wide. I'm knitting them 24 rows wide. Still not a big deal, as I'm just knitting them all 24 now. So my stripes are slightly wider. So what. Still pretty annoying that I cannot frigging count.

--Halfway through the back I realized that I cast on four stitches too few. DESPITE counting and re-counting, and counting again obsessively. I still fucked up, and not by just a stitch or two. By FOUR. How the hell did I miss FOUR stitches??? My inability to count is getting somewhat ridiculous.

--Finished the back, moved on to the left front. I apparently store my brain in my butt when I'm knitting, because I just kept knitting along after finishing the increases, in a happy little fog. Snapped out of it to realize that I've knitted two and a half stripes past where I should have started the armhole shaping. This is what happens when I knit and . . . well, when I just knit, sadly.

--Knit the right front. Realized when I was about to bind off that instead of knitting the right front, I've actually been knitting another LEFT front. Much screaming and swearing occurred, and there may or may not have been a childish temper-tantrum followed by me storming off to the kitchen for a fortifying drink of the alcoholic variety to steel myself to rip back to the armhole.

I'm at somewhat of a loss for how else exactly I can screw this thing up. But I'm sure there's a way.

Last night I just cast on for the first sleeve. Stay tuned for further adventures.

my knitting hates me

It's the only conclusion I have reached after the events of the past several weeks. I'm not sure what reason it has to hate me, but hate me it does. Suddenly and violently and all over the place.

Let's review.

There are my January KAL socks. Which, two months past the deadline, I still have not finished. I was knitting away at them, still very much within my self-imposed deadline, when I reached the toe decreases. What possessed me to stop and count my stitches, I don't know, but I did. And I discovered that somehow when I was decreasing the stitches for the gussets, I decreased too much. the sole of my sock was six stitches short because I, apparently, am an idiot who doesn't know how to count. I tried it on, and yep, it's noticeably tighter than its mate. I frogged the entire foot.

But I was not discouraged. I valiantly started knitting away at it again. An inch and a half later, I realize that I ripped back too far, and now it's hasn't been decreased enough. Because I'm an idiot who still doesn't know how to count. I ripped back again.

Frustrated with the sock, I put it in time-out. Then I went out and bought myself a skein of Malabrigo in the colorway Stonechat and cast on for a hat. I'm about halfway through the first lace panel, when I realize that I somehow, and I have no idea how, screwed it up. Ripped back. Put the hat in time out as well.

Moved on to my goofy orange hat. Screwed up the decreases, but luckily I caught the mistake three rounds in. Ripped back and reknit because damn it I was going to bloody well finish something. The rest came out all right.

Empowered by my recent victory I went back to the Spiteful Lace Socks of Hatred. Knit the foot, obsessively counting the stitches every other row. Ended with the correct number. Knit the toe. Realized that the toe of the first sock and second sock look very different. Consult the pattern. Realize that the pattern says decrease every other row. And, yep, I decreased every row. I'm an idiot, and somehow I managed to not catch it before I cut the yarn. Very nearly pitched the whole thing across the room in a childish temper tantrum. The sock is in time out again.

Considered going back to my stonechat hat. Remembered that my stonechat has already expressed its hatred toward me. It's still in time out. Cast on for my sweater instead.

I've been putting off this sweater for a long time. I was disappointed in it before I ever started it, because the yarn looked different online than in person. I thought I was ordering grey and brick-red yarn. Instead I was actually getting grey and brownish-red yarn. But after knitting it up, the color combination has grown on me. It's still not something I would have chosen intentionally, but I think that it works well. Take a look!




I'm almost done with the back, and while at first I thought I had broken the string of evilness, I was wrong. The stripes are supposed to be 20 rows wide. I've been knitting them 24 rows wide. Where I got 24 from, I have no idea. But I didn't discover that my stripes are too wide until I was halfway done with the back. The hell with it, I said, I'll have wide stripes. I don't care.

Then I discovered that not all stripes are 24. The first two after the ribbing were 24. The one after that was 28, and god knows how many the one after that would have been. Probably 38457298734 if I'd had my way about things. I ripped back. All stripes are 24 now.

I also just discovered (and may or may not have hurled my knitting away from me while swearing violently at it) that despite counting and re-counting and re-re-counting, I still cast on an incorrect number of stitches. Four too few. I just fudged the increases so at least the top half will have the right number. Did I mention I apparently suck at counting? I think a kindergartener could count better than I can. It's kind of pathetic.

But that's not true. It's just what my knitting wants me to think. It wants me to think I can't count and can't read a pattern to save my life. It wants me to doubt these basic skills I've mastered since grade school. To what end, I don't know, but it clearly has some clever, evil plot.

So, you see, my knitting hates me.

But that's okay, because right now I hate it back.

ZOMG

So, I've been neglecting this blog again, bad girl that I am. My life has been INSANELY BUSY lately. So busy, in fact, that it requires the use of ALL CAPS to emphasize just how CRAZY it really is. Yeah.

So, I've not made that much headway, unfortunately. I've finished the first of my mother's socks, but haven't cast on for the second one. I've also finished the first of Rina's Harry Potter socks, and just cast on for the second one last night. I'm about five rounds in, which, let's be honest, doesn't really count for anything. ::sigh::

The BTWNE is soooooooo close to ending. I have just FOUR MORE ROUNDS to do, and then I am done with that awful beast FOREVER.

I've also resurrected my amigurumi cupcake and am almost done. It just needs to be stuffed and sewn together. I might do that later tonight if I have two seconds to do it in. I thought about resurrecting my Beholder as well, but decided that enough is enough. I'm overambitious enough as it is. That little bugger can wait until January.

Now I am off to go crochet like a madwoman. I have delusions of finishing the BTWNE by tonight. Expect a picture-heavy post tomorrow, including the blanket from hell, a cupcake, Jason's hat, and the two first socks!

arrgh

I was at the LYS again today. In an uncharacteristic show of self-control, I walked out of there with nothing more than the size 8 dpns that I'd gone in there intending to purchase.

UFO month is, erm, coming along, I suppose. After my victorious FO on the second, I haven't really done much of anything else. I'm rapidly approaching the heel flap on my mother's socks. I've also fed the BTWNE anothe skein or so of yarn, though you wouldn't be able to tell just by looking at it. It's like there's some yarn-sucking black hole hidden somewhere within its row upon row of mind-numbingly, eye-crossingly, soul-crushingly boring "3dc, ch1 ad nauseum." I am so so so frigging sick of this blanket that I'm sorely tempted to toss the damned thing out the window and just be done with it. I won't, though, because I am a stubborn little brat and no afghan will ever get the best of me, no matter how evil it is.

I may have cheated on my UFO finishing just the tiniest bit. But, as I ever so cleverly rationalized to myself, presents for other people don't really count. So I finally frogged my failed beret and reincarnated all that lovely soft baby alpaca goodness as the Binary Cable Hat for Jason. Except the lovely soft baby alpaca goodness evilness was having none of that. After some minor gauge issues and some half-assed pattern recalculations, I sat down to knit, and three wasted rows into the hat I discovered that the damned yarn is so fuzzy that it completely obscures the pattern. Probably for the best. My calculations were probably off anyhow. They always are.

I don't know if it was only trying to keep me from deviating on my path of UFO decimation or what. I can hear it chastising me now. "No, Leandra! No more projects until December! That's only three weeks away - can't you even make it three measly weeks without starting something new???" That might just be my conscience - that voice I occasionally hear that tells me that I don't need any more yarn. I generally don't listen to that voice.

But so far this yarn is 2 for 2 in failing to become hats. Maybe it doesn't want to become a hat. Or maybe it thinks it's above being knit - after all, it is by far the most expensive yarn I have. Or maybe it's just evil. Well, it better get its act together, or so help me I'll make mice out of every last scrap of the stuff and give them all to my kitties. You hear that, yarn? You better shape up or you'll spend the rest of your miserably existence being slobbered on, clawed up, and getting lost under the sofa.

Tomorrow is probably going to show me breaking my yarn diet. The LYS is having a sale (whee!) and now that I've got the binary hat on my brain, I need appropriate yarn for it. And some more sock yarn because that doesn't count as stash. And appropriate needles. And, um, stuff. Yeah

Anyhow, look forward to yarn pr0n tomorrow.