The Battle Bowl, Week 2 - Part 1

Most of the week between the two Möbius bowl classes, I spent knitting a baby hat for a baby who had arrived prematurely. It was a rush job. I didn't get around to knitting any more on the bowl until Friday evening.

I picked up the stitches as directed and knit away.

After a few rounds, I realized I'd done something wrong because it was coming out all twisted. Darn!

So I studied my mess and noticed that some stitches had been picked up from one side (does that have any meaning on a Möbius topology?) and some on the other. Ah, well, that must have been my mistake.

Tore it all out and started again, making sure that I picked up from the same "side" this time.

It still came out all twisty.

Okay, I muttered to myself, must have been because I was watching a video (Billy Elliot) as I was trying to do the deed and paying insufficient attention.

Frogged that puppy again.

Picked up the stitches again. Twisty, twisty, twisty - froggy, froggy, froggy - try again.

Knit another half dozen rounds.

It looked like an acrobat going through some pretty intense moves, so I frogged it and tried again.

Still twisty - and it was almost 4:00 a.m.

Ouch! I had to pick the Engineer up at the airport at 9:00 the next morning, so I stuffed the yarn contortion into my knitting bag and tucked myself into bed for three hours of sleep.

I did get an hour's nap between picking up my Beloved and going to class, but I was not (to put it delicately) in tip-top mental condition when I arrived at Blazing Needles.

One of the other students had finished her bowl, in multiple colors, no less. Cynthia, the owner of Blazing Needles, modeled it as a hat. It looked quite Elizabethan. Then it went into the shop washer for felting. It came out three cycles later looking marvelous.

Poo, I wanted to felt my bowl too.

"Liat, what have I done wrong?"

"You've picked up the stitches wrong, you're going to have to pull it all out."

She gave me further instructions. I replied, "But that's what I've been doing."

Ripped it out again, the yarn was looking a little shopworn, and started again. Are you counting? This was start number five (5!)

Still twisted.

Evil Language! Frogged it again.

Liat laid it out carefully on the table for me and once again told me how to pick up the stitches. I was muttering and cussing under my breath.

Try number six. My eyes were crossing. I couldn't focus on the stitches.

STILL TWISTED!!!

My growling and cussing was no longer subvocal. I tore out the errant stitches with unnecessary vigor.

Liat offered to pick up the stitches for me. I wanted to do it myself so that I would learn, but I also wanted to get the dang thing done, so I told her to go ahead.

She flattened it out on the table and looked it over. It wouldn't flatten properly.

"That's odd."

She turned it over and tried to flattened it out again. It wouldn't flatten.

She examined it carefully and announced, "I think you have six twists in it. It won't work."

I took the monster Möbius back and threatened to throw the whole mess at the rapidly spinning yarn twaddler just to see in which direction it would fly when it hit.

Liat pointed out that might mess up the lovely peacock colored silk that was being twaddled.

I restrained myself.

So I decided to make the smaller bowl to try Magic Looping a Möbius. You can probably guess how much success I had with that...

GrumpoGirl reared her ugly head and snarled at the universe. How embarrassing. She's supposed to stay hidden from view at all times. Never show her face in public. I followed Liat out to her car after class and apologized. Liat was gracious. Thank you Liat.

But now it's getting late and this post is getting too long. I'm going to finish this sordid story tomorrow night.

(So who you think is gunna win this battle - GrumpoGirl or the Monster Möbius?)

Glass Disaster

I'd soaked the Bryce Canyon Cap and stretched it over the glass head to block.Sigh. I guess the smell of wet baby alpaca was too much for Sachi to resist.

Fortunately the sink contained all of the glass shards and the cat wasn't cut.

Unfortunately, none of the Pier 1 Imports in the valley have any glass heads in stock, some guy doing an art installation bought them all up.

Now where can I find a new head?

Big Tink or Little Frog

Sometimes you just have to wonder...

I had knit all of the edge rows on the Civil War shawl and was doing a final count of stitches to make sure everything was copesetic when I saw one big mess. Dang! How did I do that? More to the point, how did I not realize I'd done that?

Sure as heck didn't want to frog a dozen rows to fix a localized problem like that.

One of the things that Susan had taught in the shawl knitting class was backtracking and repair. I'd already done some of it before her lesson, so it wasn't entirely new material, but it's always good to have necessary skills reinforced.

Here goes...

Unraveled the offending stitches. Good grief, look at all those loose strands. I'm not going into the details. Don't want the air to turn blue with the required colorful language. Suffice it to show...

Tah-dah! It ain't perfect, but I think it will look okay once it's blocked.

Civil War Shawl Redux

Redux is my word of the day. ("Like a Phoenix from the ashes" sounded a little overly dramatic.)
I am now on pattern repeat thirteen and a half. Took a long time to get all of the dropped stitches back on the needles in proper order. I doubt it's perfect. My sister is not a knitter, though (except for idiot cloths, which she learned to knit so her hands would be authentically occupied), so I doubt she'll notice.

This does not look like 15 pattern repeats plus edging will be big enough...

As God Is My Witness, I'll Never Frog Lace Again!

The Civil War Shawl went down with the South last night.

I do have excuses...

My first alma mater is Michigan State. They got to the Sweet Sixteen and were up against the University of Kansas. The Jayhawks were kicking Spartan butt, so I was knitting away, not paying too much attention. (I'm not a big fan of pain or humiliation.) Then the tide turned and the feathers started flying. It was neck and neck down the final stretch. Michigan State won by 5 at the buzzer!

And the crowd went wild!

The TV went to the UNC, Gonzaga game, which, since I'd lived in Chapel Hill for several years, could have been interesting, except for that UNC was blowing Gonzaga out by more than 20 points, so I looked down at my knitting and realized that instead of knitting pattern rows seven and eight, I'd knit rows one and two.

Evil Language!

No cure for it but to frog the two offending rows.

Now I'm sure you're all are thinking, "She's a thinking woman's knitter, so I'm sure she had a life line." And it's true that just last Sunday Susan had demonstrated life lines in the shawl knitting class. But my excuses are: I didn't have any crochet weight cotton to make a life line with, and, besides, it's a simple lace pattern, easy to tell where you are, and I check every half row, making sure I come out even and I count stitches on all of the purls rows.

Here's where you find out why I'm the Clueless Crafter...

I decided tinking back two 200+ stitch rows was just too time consuming, so I pulled my circular needle out and started unraveling. When I was almost to the end, there was a sudden explosion of cat on my lap.

"Ohai Mom! Whatcha doin? Can I halp? Ooh, yarn!"

It's amazing how much damage can be done in under two seconds.

Three quarters of the shawl is back on the needle in passably good shape. The last quarter, however... excuse me while I shed some tears... is not a pretty sight.

But I swear, however long it takes, the South shall rise again!

And when I'm out at the grocery store this afternoon, I'm going to buy some cotton crochet thread.