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July 28, 2003
How knitting ate my Sunday...
Yesterday I was loving Mandalay, today it almost drove me crazy. I have redone one of the shoulder seams four times.
Originally, I cast off the shoulders as directed [well, almost as directed: I used short-row wrapping]. I haven't cast off shoulders in a long time, preferring a three-needle bind off most times. I used a crochet hook to slip stitch the seam together for the first shoulder and it looked precisely like ass. So, I ripped it out.
I ripped back to the start of the shoulder shaping and tried again. This time I tried keeping the stitches live so I could do a three-needle bind off. I also wrapped short rows. Once again, ass. [This option really only failed because there are stripes involved].
Try three: live stitches, no short-row wrapping. Result: ass.
Attempt, the fourth: back to casting off, this time slipping the first stitch at the turn to minimize any stair steps. Also, back to slip stitching with the crochet hook, doing what I probably should have done from the beginning and inserting the hook just a bit further from the edge. The result is something I can live with. [Or, the result is something with which I can live].
Time for the second shoulder and my Sunday almost gone.
The new Interweave Knits came in the mail last week [First issue with the new editor, Pam Allen]. Although at first glance there is nothing in it that makes me go, "Wow!"; it doesn't make me want to weep openly the way Knitter's does either.
There are some interesting articles, including one on geeky knitting that mentions June Oshrio's DNA cable scarf, the mathematical knitting at Woolly Thoughts and Cliff Stoll's Klein Bottle hat. [I will point out that Knits made mistakes in the web addresses for both the scarf and Woolly Thoughts. Really, how hard would it have been to have tested them?].
The most probable design to end up on my 'to do' list from this issue: the Short-Row Striped Pullover by Fiona Ellis; however, in a completely different colorway.
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