The Day of Rip and Re-knit

I should be knitting - I've got two pair of mittens to make for someone - but I needed to take a break and play on Ravelry and come here and whinge a bit. The first pair of mittens is being what you might call frustrating. I'm sure once I get it started properly it will be fine, but the getting started seems to be the problem.

See, they need to be a different size than the pattern is supposed to make. And normally that's basic math. Do a gauge swatch, do a little math, find out how many stitches are needed, and adjust pattern accordingly. It is not working out according to plan today. I have ripped out and restarted the mittens 4 times so far, and half the problem is that my gauge swatch was a big fat liar, giving me an extra stitch per inch. The other main problem was me missing the fact that they use a Norwegian construction where you start with less stitches on the palm side, and I was doing the calculations as if palm and back started with the same stitch count. 

So the day went like this. Start with 80 or 90 stitches, realize it's too big a cuff, rip out. Start with 72 stitches of cuff and increase to 86. Realize the increases should be part of the thumb gusset instead and rip them out. Start the pattern, realize it's divided incorrectly between palm and back of hand, rip out. Restart the pattern, realize halfway up the thumb that the mitt looks big, recheck gauge, discover your stitch count will result in a mitten too big by at least an inch, and rip out yet again. 

Sigh. That mitten had better work this time (knock wood, hopefully I've made all the mistakes now...). I will get to it right after I make a cup of tea. 

Must Be Monday

Otherwise known as apparently not a good day for getting things done...

Work started last week, and the weather was gorgeous. Today, not so much. It went from cold and overcast on arrival to cold, windy and raining shortly after we got to the first site of the day. We stuck it out for a couple hours, but finally admitted defeat with the place half-finished, and drove back to the shop (with the heater on full blast). Everything I was wearing was wet enough to need changing when I got home. Oh well, I'm dry now, and at least gardeners have the option to stop for the day, unlike mail carriers or the people who change advertising signs, both of whom I saw working outside today.

All right, so free day, what to do? I noticed the blue yarn in the sweater for my cousin's baby was bleeding colour onto my fingers when I knit, so I wound the yarn into skeins and washed it. Apparently the bar of laundry soap I used wasn't a good idea, because the yarn is all patchy now and will probably need re-dyeing before use...and since I already have that blue in the trim of the cuffs and sweater body, I will probably have to rip ALL of it out and restart with a different colour combination.

That was a depressing thought, so while I was working my courage up, I decided to sew some of the patches for the quilt square in progress. Got a piece done, corners lined up, and came to the conclusion that how I was lining this section up was wrong and I will have to rip out and redo. Thankfully it was only the first of the four sections with that layout.

I'm starting to sense a pattern here - and it's making me very hesitant to try and get anything substantial done. Maybe the best thing to do with my free day is going to be make a cup of tea, put on a movie, and (sigh) rip out the errant quilting seams, frog the baby sweater, and turn my attention to finding a new colour combination for the latter. Yeah. And with any luck, neither the stove nor the VCR will blow up when I try to use them.

Dithering

Ever get that feeling when you want to start something (like a knitting project), but no clear picture of what, exactly?

Yeah. I've got about 10 days to do 2 Christmas gift projects, and I pretty much wasted all of yesterday trying to start one. I know it will be a shawl, and with some dark brown Malabrigo fingering that was gifted to me. And I want to do it in the shallow crescent shape that's popular. Couldn't find a pattern that really spoke to me, tried starting about half a dozen times with various edging patterns to do my own thing, looked through all my stitch dictionaries...ripped out again, thought I might print something today before class rather than winging it...then ran across the Oslo Walk shawl in the only Interweave mag. I have at the apt, and decided to do that one, but in fingering and without the beads. Maybe. I might still print something today, just in case. But Oslo is cast on, and I'm telling myself to quit dithering and JUST PICK SOMETHING.

I tried to start the second Christmas project while I was debating about the shawl. Gloves. Three possible yarn options after stash diving, two of which would require dyeing to get to a colour the recipient would like, the third is fixed as to colour and pattern since I had one glove half-done and sitting around. Restarted that glove, wondered if that pattern was really the best choice for the recipient, put it down...This time I put the onus on her - emailed the fiber options and said 'Pick one'. That way I know it'll be an OK choice.

Now to the next stage of dithering...which homework assignment do I work on this morning? Xeriscape design, business plan, HR research? All that's coming down to the wire too - next week is the last week of school already. Hopefully I'm done for good, this time!

Summer School

Well, two days into school, we pretty much know what to expect. Just watch me disappear for a while again, I think. Lots of projects to do - at least they'll be interesting, even if they do take up a lot of time.

Our first little assignment in Urban Agriculture was to plan a garden based on the premise that we want to have a BBQ for 40 people, and get the veg and herb ingredients for the planned menu (given to us) from said garden. Not so bad, I've got most of that done already. But there will be more assignments. And, you know, the usual. ID quizzes, midterms and finals, outdoor lab time and logbooks.

The kicker is going to be the five (count 'em, five!) big projects for the Construction and Maintenance classes. To be done in the next 2 months - most are due the week before exams, so end of September.

Number 1 is a group project, which involves surveying (with theodolite and measuring rod) an assigned area of campus, drawing the scale map and two overlays, one noting possible drainage issues, and one drawing up recommendations to improve it.

  Numbers 2 and 3 kind of go together. For number 2, we have to design a front yard, using our CAD program, then do all the estimating for materials and labour to complete the project. For number 3, we have to put together a maintenance package for the homeowner in our design, with information on care for their new plantings (minimum 12 different plants).

Numbers 4 and 5 both involve creating manuals. One is a safety manual for 10 different types of equipment of various sizes, powered and not. The other is a quick reference manual for growth, description, and care of 25 of the plants we will be studying this term.

There's going to be a couple trips off campus, too. One is to a farm that grows and sells wild food - I forget what the name is, but they were profiled in the Citizen earlier this summer, so that's pretty exciting. A few of us are already into wild stuff - we were nibbling on purslane and serviceberries and stuff while weeding the vegetable garden yesterday. I think there's more purslane than legit veg in some spots; maybe we can add it to our market offerings (the class garden center is open Tues and Thurs, 11-1pm, offering plants, and vegetables as they ripen).
Our second trip off campus will be to the Cancer Survivors' Park near Hurdman Station, to do maintenance, then we're stopping at the Arboretum in the afternoon to do an ID quiz walkabout.

So, yeah. Lots to do. I think my policy is going to have to be to start on as much as I can right away, and just keep plugging. Apparently there were a lot of stressed students in the final stretch for the first group...

All I've Got

I had a lovely notion - two in fact - for a tam pattern. One textured with leaves and pinecones and acorns in relief, and one with a lace panel and ribs. I bought a skein of green fingering last week at Janie H. Knits  to make into a tam. And this is where I am.

Not much, eh? But I have frogged that thing about 4 times, and I am beginning to suspect that maybe my current ideas will work better in a thicker yarn. I need more pop, more relief in the stitches. to make them work. And now I also have to find something to do with this green.

Maybe I'll wait until the sale at Janie's and see if I can get the light green of the same stuff. I had this idea for a stranded, ferny, sort of thing when I saw the two colors together...Dang.

See, this is my issue with ideas. Mine don't just feed off each other. I suspect they get together and spawn new ones like rabbits. And then I write them down so I don't forget - but I've got a page full of notions waiting, and I can't knit (or design) fast enough to keep up.