has been cutting into my knitting time.
It's good. Its good to have friends, and spend time with them. (that
is local, everyday friends—vs old friends who have moved away and
are far flung!)
It's good to feel useful, and to make a
point of visiting the B—its good too, to see visible progress every
day. He is still not walking, but he is clearly getting better each
time I see him—Not that he hasn't been his old self in some
respects—he has managed to work his way through 3 phones in the
past 2 weeks!
His fine motor skills (lacking before
the stoke) are shot—but he insist he can muscle his way through—and
has broken not 1, not 2, but 3 chargers breaking wires, or pulling
them apart! It is infuriating--and typical of him.
Where are pictures of the Lacy Mohair
cowl, you might ask? Is it done?
So I went and finished up skein 5, and
all of the partial skein, and only had the grafting to do. I plowed
ahead, even though I was tired, and it was late. I wanted this
project finished, I wanted to move on to something new.
I messed up royally! At this point
the graft is clearly biased—and it's no wonder. I came to the end,
and found the needle held 8 stitches, but there were clearly 16
stitches to undo from from the provisional cast cast on. Undoing a
graft is always a PITA, but mohair makes it worse. I will undo, and
fix—but I just didn't have the energy or inclination. (Besides, I
had to tuck the work into the freezer—I don't KNOW why (I can
speculate) but I do know, it is easier to undo mohair (frog, or tink
or unweave a graft) when it is cold.
In the meanwhile, I have been working
on my secret sock, and I started my massive bottom up shawl cast on.
4 repeats cast on (I need 90!) Each repeat is 13 stitches, and
counting repeats, not stitches.
The cast on has a bit of pattern—so
this makes sense. It is a bit tedious (cast on x, bind off Y, cast
on again, bind off again, and again, and then repeat the whole deal. And counting the repeats to the design are the way to go. The tedious part comes NOW, when I am fresh and enthusiastic, not
at the end when I am tired and slightly bored with the project (see
paragraphs above where I mention how I screwed up the end of the
cowl!)
I know lots of cast on's—but as a
general rule, cast on's are straight edges. Which is why shawls are
so often knit top down. Its easier to to make a pretty bind off
edge. But this cast on edge is the exception. Here is a sample of the edge for the sparkly blue shawl.
Pretty, isn't it? It's a bear to cast on—90 repeats of 13
stitches—that's 1170 stitches! But by row 7, a manageable 350 or
so! But look what you get! Deep lacey points on the edge. As good
or better than a lacy bind off. And it's what you start with. As
time goes on, the shawl will have fewer and fewer stitches. Easier
ever row. Oh joy.
