Woolgathering

I ripped my shawl.

I seem to be pathologically incapable of re-knitting it.

(No. I have no idea why.)

So I turned to my spinning for solace. That seems to be going slightly better than the knitting is.

I’m still on the Cheviot, and approaching the end of the second of three bags of top. I finished skeining off the first two bobbins this morning, making two and one small skein in total, thus far. I need to decouple my foot and my hands, so I am concentrating on getting my foot going to a steady rhythm, independent of what is on the radio or what my hands are doing. It’s not easy for me. I think I need a metronome…

The foot is coming under control but, predictably, the hands are less than perfect - so my singles are somewhat more erratic and slubby than they were. This does not concern me. What I am trying to do is to decrease the tendency to overspin. Consistency will come later, once I get the fundamentals of foot control in place.

As for the shawl - I now loathe it with a vengeance. I wish that I had not ripped it out.

What happened? Well, I found an excellent lace tutorial. Reading it showed me a far more sensible way of doing the yarn overs than the previous tutorial that I had read would have me do. It also gave a much better explanation of that damn SSK (I have now read three different sets of instructions for doing that!). I adopted both new methods, knowing in my heart that I should not change horses midstream and should rip. I told myself “It’s just a trial piece” and “It’s only for me”. Fair enough. My choice. I knitted on. It was going fine. I was very happy. I began to love my shawl and the yarn. I enjoyed its crisp texture…

…I did a check count at the end of the pattern repeat. I had nowhere near the right number of stitches!!

I tinked

I re-knitted

I tinked again

I re-knitted again

I tinked

I knitted once more, watching carefully what I was doing…

The YO/SSK combo using the new methods was failing to produce a stitch and I was going backwards on the stitch count. I needed to tink by about 10 rows.

All things considered, I decided ripping was the way to go.

So I ripped it all out and began again.

Could I get the damn pattern set? I spent all afternoon and all evening on it. I abandoned the SSK and returned to K2tog tbl. I have achieved just the one full pattern repeat but finally have the correct number of stitches. My yarn is a mess, and all fluffed up.

I hate the damn thing.

It’s going to take time, and probably some therapy. Also chocolate. And maybe gin.

If I can ever face lace again - I want to have a go at random lace knitting. I have a box full of yarn oddments in my collage stash. I foresee some nice little wall art pieces at some point.

I am now going back to my spinning wheel. I plan to finish off the Cheviot this weekend. I am ready for a pink fix.