A Bitter Knitter

Take some yarn... (well, not just some yarn.  Lots of yarn.  About 1200 yards in this particular instance.) Add some knitting needles, a few stitch markers, a handful of blocking pins, and an emergency crochet hook.  Wait 125 days (who knows how many hours... I'm not sure I really want to know that number...) and then, if the Knitting Fates have smiled upon you... ...your yarn will grow up to become a sweater. My NaKniSweMo sweater is finally all grown up.  *sniff*   More photos when I can get some one to take them for me--I'm just ecstatic with the fact that these sleeves are LONG ENOUGH for my abnormally long arms . Also, since my last post, I've finished another pair of socks: These are the first pair of socks I created without a specific pattern--they are knit straight from my brain.  They are also my first socks with afterthought heels.  I love the colours, especially of the variegated yarn.  The LYS I ...

Dear Pair of Pesky Purled Stitches- You hid so stealthily from me while I knit the sleeve of my sweater, waiting until the sleeve was soaking wet to expose yourself.  You placed yourselves on the sleeve right where it would crease at the elbow so that you knew I would see you every time I wore the sweater.  And you did it all to torment me.  You knew that being faced the wrong way would cause you to catch the light differently than all the other stitches in the broken rib pattern.  You wanted  to draw attention to yourselves and away from the sweater as a whole. Multiple people told me that you were just two stitches and no one would notice, that you weren't worth the effort, and that I should just let you be.  But you and I know that isn't true.  From the moment you showed your faces, you should have known that you were doomed.  I could not allow you to besmirch my sweater, and so you had to go. I admit that I was intimidated by you. ...

If I would stop stealth knitting, you would get blog posts.  I'm planning a post for late March that will show you what I've been up to in January and February, but you're going to have to wait until then for most of my knitting progress. For today, however, I have some good yarn-y news. I have finished all the pieces for my sweater! Yes, my NaKniSweMo sweater is finally cast off.  It's currently blocking (perched precariously on my piano) and looks like a puzzle waiting to be put together...  A sweater sized jigsaw puzzle... The second sleeve is hiding down on the piano bench.  Each sleeve took a whole skein of yarn.  Or, to rephrase, it took 200 yards per sleeve to make them long enough for me.  Of course, it was after  knitting all 400 yards (or 50 inches) of sleeve and putting the whole thing in to soak that I noticed the mistake below: Two stitches that should have been knit that I distractedly purled instead.  If I had noticed before...