Here we are, a whole weekend to play with. What is to be done with it? For now, the sun is shining – but bad weather is on the way and Mr L is in his playroom the garage this morning. I seem to be saddled with laundry and cat trays, when I would rather be out with my boots and my camera.
Well, the washing machine is on, and so is the dishwasher. I waved a damp cloth at the cooker and a few work surfaces. Pizza is planned for dinner, and there is leftover dough in the freezer — so I don’t have to make any of that.
What to do, what to do… I want to block the scarf and cowl but that scarf is going to need spinning – and there’s a load of drain-dirty work clothes in the washer right now. They are only on pre-wash yet. Yes, I know. I am usually “green” about my laundry – but these togs have been on the conservatory floor since last weekend when Mr L was in and out of the septic tank and the drains all day. They are getting a very thorough wash, I can tell you! A pre-wash and then a good hot wash to follow — and I don’t care how much water/electricity/detergent gets used in the process!
Postie has just been. He brought stuff (yes – stash) that needs to be photographed, but I am deferring that because Mr L ordered my early b’day pressie yesterday. Photo standards around here are about to be elevated slightly. Note how confidently I say that – get back to me on this one next week, will you?
The Laminaria (oh, the Laminaria) stalled last night and I moved on to the second Laeticia sock for a change of pace. You see, I had come to the middle of the transition chart – after all the little star stitches had been finished, and I wanted to check my stitch count. Row 7 of the chart had not gone well and took four attempts before the row came out right. Tinking that much had made a bit of a mess of the yarn and when I purled back across there was a place where I wasn’t entirely sure whether I was knitting two stitches or one split one…
I knew that I had to work out exactly what the count should be, and check it before beginning the blossoms.
Well, could I? COULD I? I could NOT! I just could not get the maths to work out from the chart. Not nohow. I called in reinforcements, but he couldn’t work it out either. Row 7Â just didn’t add up. I began to stress.
Calming myself down, I decided the only thing to do was to work out how many stitches I should have going into row 9, rather than what should have happened in row 7.
That didn’t add up either.
In both cases I had an odd number to divide by an even one, in order to work out how many full repeats would generate just how many more stitches in total…
It just didn’t make any sense.
I decided it might go better in the morning, and we elected to run a hot bath and take a crossword to bed. While the water was running I decided to count my stitches in readiness for today’s assault. It was bad news: I had one more stitch on one side than I had on the other – exactly as I thought I might.
Just after I got in the bath and sipped my wine, I sat up straight and declared my stupidity.
It would have helped my calculations on the chart, had I subtracted the three border stitches at each side, that are not included in the chart, from my row totals.
It would have helped a lot, actually. It would have given me an even number to divide, for a start.
Stupid Woman!
Stupid, stupid, stupid woman…
So, there’s one thing I can do today – do the maths again and find out which side of the shawl is right and which is wrong – please $deity don’t let it be a case of both sides wrong! Put it right, and set off again.
First, the cat trays.
I lead such an exciting life.
And it’s about to rain.
There’s the bottle bank to do as well…
…and tomato topping to mantle for the pizza…
…I think I’ll just sit and stroke this cone of alpaca that arrived today. Oops, that let the cat out of the bag, didn’t it? It’s for this. See? Told you my life was exciting 🙂