Know your weaknesses

I'll just say at the beginning here (at the risk of sounding like I'm at an AA meeting), that I have had a difficult relationship with knitting patterns all my life. To me, a perfectly fine and obtainable pattern is knit 2, pearl 2. I'm good at socks, as long as the patterns is k2, p2.

I knew when I made the cowl at Christmas that the pattern said I should get 5 repeats, minimum, out of a 100 g ball of sock yarn, and I got three, barely. What I didn't know until my sister pointed it out was that I did the yarn overs completely wrong, using twice as much yarn, and causing them to not really look like yo's. They look okay, and I wear the cowl, but still.

So, a friend gave me another pattern for a cowl that has yo's that makes a wave pattern. I repeated the pattern 3 times before I cottoned on to the fact that I was increasing by a lot of stitches when I shouldn't be - like ending up with 401 stitches when I should have 234. (You say seems like I would have noticed it sooner? Shut. Up. ) So, rip out time. I'm back to the first inch of knitting and am forging ahead, but.........I did find my error! And that's really huge for me.

On weaving, at which I'm much more competent, I wound 516 ends this week and have them through the reed. I'm hoping to get this warp through the heddles and beamed before the end of the weekend. I'm getting ready to head into a couple weeks of work hell and having something "shuttle ready" when I come home.....that's important.

I'm warping Flowers of Cromaine. Flowers! Valentine's Day! Spring! Flowers!


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