This property is condemned

I am a total Ravelry addict now. That is the official excuse for the lack of updates lately. Also, I've been living my life. Going out with friends, having a dinner party, the odd drink after work. All of those things that keep you away from the keyboard.

It is beastly hot now. That comes as no surprise, since it's August in the Northern Hemisphere, but the humidity is just cruel. It's not the weather for knitting big woolly jumpers, but I am knitting with a bulky wool yarn. It's an AC project; I don't want to felt while I knit with my sweaty hands. Through the miracle of Ravelry, I've come across the work of an English designer, Ysolde Teague. I am currently knitting her Cloud Bolero, a cropped cap sleeve jacket with Feather and Fan lace pattern, in RYC Soft Tweed. Knitting lace in bulky yarn is kind of like using the fat crayons in kindergarten, but that's what I need. I've come to lace later than many knitters of my cohort, due to sheer laziness. All of that counting feels too much like work. But lace is so pretty, and sometimes easier than it looks. So, I am venturing cautiously in the world of intermediate to advanced knitting.

What does the title mean, you wonder. It's a Tennessee Williams play, but I use it in reference to several recent knitting disasters. There was the recent disappointment with the Summertime Tunic. It looked so pretty in the coral cotton blend yarn, but the circular needles hid an ugly secret: it was very, very big. Laughably so when I tried it on. At least I would have laughed if I hadn't been so pissed at myself for the big math error. I tore it out and recycled the yarn into Picovoli, a fitted tee pattern to which I planned to add cap sleeves. I managed to get all the way through the raglan seam (from the top down) before realizing that I had twisted the knitting when joining it in the round. I knit a 4" wide moebius strip! After some inward cursing, I tore it out too. The yarn is in the time out corner. I'd like to believe that it isn't really bad, that rehabilitation is possible, but I will wait until attempting anything else with it.

Also lousy lately: a short row heel for a sock. I've done it a few times to get it right. I presented it for approval and it was torn out because the foot was too long. I had the turn almost finished when I dropped a stitch and the whole damn thing came apart. I did the sensible thing and switched to a different project for a while. I worked on another sock, in Jitterbug, and finally saw the short row light. The wraps were so much easier to see in the multicolor variegation! Then I went back to the original, single tone sock and bossed that heel around. I'm going to present it for approval tomorrow, so I remain cautiously optimistic.

Life seems full of reversals at the moment. Yesterday, I wanted to quit my job and today I was on a roll. The project that seemed written in a foreign language seems perfectly obvious after a night of sleep. A baby gift feared too small for the intended infants turned out to be comically large. (Babies are small, especially twins. They'll grow into the kimonos.) Everything eventually works itself out, even the two screws in my tire.

Freud believed that collecting or hoarding something was a sign of sexual frustration. He was a big cokehead and clearly not a knitter. I have a big stash of wool, alpaca, and cotton yarns just waiting for me to get around to knitting them. Lots of projects in the queue. Still, I continue to succumb to the call for more yarn, namely the annual Stitches Midwest expo this weekend. It's amazing. I learned to knit stranded colorwork there in under five minutes. It is full of opportunities to adopt many, many poor, homeless fibers. I'm making a list of yarn needed for earmarked projects (thanks to Ravelry), but know that there will inevitably be impulse purchases as well.