Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Mellow Yellow? I think not!

It's yellow and it's going to eat me.

I think I need sunglasses to work on this thing, even though, technically, I don't have to LOOK at it while I'm knitting it. It seems like after I've been knitting it for a while, everything in the room starts to take on a yellowish tinge, like the whole world has jaundice and I am the only one who is immune.

Plus it's dull. It's stultifyingly dull, it's so dull that it's dullness cannot be measured on Janine's Standard Scale for Dullness. It broke the meter. Sigh.

Luckily, it does go fairly quickly, WHEN I can bring myself to suffer the dullness. Which is mostly while I'm reading online, where dullness is not a factor, it is an advantage. When you think of all the mistakes I made on the project from hell colorblocks sweater which WAS interesting while I was working online, you'd think I'd just be grateful not to have opportunities for mistakes now.

I'm perverse, I know.

But last night, while I was alternating reading and knitting (book comb went to ground AGAIN...where could it be???) the dullness of the Squat's Wallaby became absolutely unbearable.

So I pulled out this. It's the perfect antidote. For one thing, it's a UFO, so it is a virtuous project. I'm not buying new yarn and I'm not starting yet another project which has a high statistical chance of suffering the same fate as this sock did.

Plus the pattern on this cabled sock requires absolute concentration. Clenching your teeth and other parts of your body is definitely called for. I can get through one repeat of the pattern before I run screaming from the room. I worked on it for one repeat last night and tried to remember HOW I managed to get through one whole sock and this partial one without giving up. I'm mystified, honestly. The span of my life when I worked on this is a blur and I'm not sure I want to know what is under that blur.

I have it on four needles too, which normally I like, but it's really, really a pain this time. I do have to wait to stop after the pattern repeat, though, so I know where I am the next time I start. I am required to finish the repeat.

I figure, if I can manage a repeat of the pattern a day (at least) I'll have the cuff of this sock done by next week. By then I should be on the interesting part of the Wallaby. Life will balance, all will be right again with the world.

Yarn love

Last night, I summoned Emily into my room. I was going to save the yarn I purchased for her and show it to her another time, but I couldn't resist.

I said, "Emily! C'mere!" I beckoned to her mysteriously. She followed me into my room.

I reached into the temporary yarn stash, aka my clothes closet, and pulled one skein of the variagated Plymouth Encore from the bag. "What do you think of this?" I said, handing her the skein.

Her eyes lit up and she impulsively hugged the skein to her chest, put her cheek down on the skein and cuddled it like a doll!

See? I know what I'm doing! And anybody who loves yarn THAT MUCH is bound to be a knitter when they grow up, don't you think?

She was even happier when I told her it was going to be a sweater for her. I love knitting for my kids...they appreciate it so much! I must be doing something right!

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