Friday, June 09, 2006

Knittus interruptus

First, I have to recount a slightly surreal experience I had yesterday. The spouse and I signed up for a 4-part series on the history of the Blues at a suburban community college. Sounds good, right? Somehow, we didn't get the memo that this series is for the Grandpa Simpson set (and I don't mean those, like yours truly, who have a gift for the rampling story). So basically we walked into a room full of people whose cumulative age is greater than that of our sun, we sat down, and I continued winding my skein of Cascade 220. If that isn't just a picture that epitomizes the hipster whippersnapper reclamation of knitting, I don't know what is.

However, though I may have begun the day in Badass Bitch with Needles Territory, I wound up mired in the Bad Planner Impasse of Sadness. See, I'm still working on Tempting, and the body tube reached its maximum tubular height just after I joined in the "Hey, I'm KNITTING here" skein.

So what are the next two steps, I ask myself as I prepare for what is likely to be a long drive home, replete with knitting time? (Uh, the spouse was driving, not to worry about me commiting seppuku via ill-advised multitasking.) I was even able to answer that question as I had the laptop with me and Castle Methuselah actually had an open wireless connection. However, in my life, two things in a row going right equals foreshadowing.

The next body step? Move the next 18 stitches on to waste yarn (no waste yarn, no needle with which to accomplish this), k2p2 rib over the next 82 stitches (wtf? Am I swinging the yarn over past the 18 stitches I've just skipped? KAAAAAHHHHN!), move 18 stitches on to waste yarn (see above re: tragic lack of boy scout genes), k2p2 rib to the end of the round (again with the KAAAAAAAAHNNN! and the swinging and the wtf?).

Well, screw you, tubular body, I've got two sleeves to knit and I actually have my set of appropriate DPNs in my bag. So nee-fucking-ner. What's that you say, Mistress Pattern? Under pain of death do not cut the yarn from the body (which may or may not be swung across two sets of 18 stitches?). But Mistress! Although I have a whole nother skein of 220, it's on my end table at home. This round to you, pattern. I remain knitless in Chicago.

1 Comments:

Blogger Matilda said...

That may be what's intended, but it's not what the pattern says:

Place next 12 [14,16,18,20] sts on waste yarn, work across 60[66, 74, 82, 88] sts, place next 12 [14,16,18,20] sts on waste yarn, work to end of rnd. Set aside. Do not break yarn.

That to me says that the 2 sets of 18 stitches for the sleeve holes are not "worked." But given that that leaves one with big swings of yarn, it seems that the pattern has just failed in clarity.

11:26 AM  

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