Friday, April 20, 2012

Do-over

The past two-and-a-half months have been difficult-- lots of unwelcome surprises, disappointments, aches and pains both physical and mental. I haven't written much about it because I try to avoid complaining, but if I had the option to start 2012 over again tomorrow with a clean slate, I'd have a hard time saying no.

I found out Sunday that my row gauge for White Pine was off by quite a bit-- another addition to the series of unfortunate events. This wouldn't be a problem at all if there was no waist shaping and it isn't really a problem in the Grand Scheme of Things... but my desire for a do-over was irresistible. On Tuesday I ripped out ten inches of the body. It's now just yarn again:


What is (relatively) easy in knitting is so so much harder in life-- at what point do you decide to stop making small adjustments? At what point do you just roll the dice and move to Argentina (for example)? I don't think I'm there yet, but how will I know when I am?

Do they raise sheep in Argentina?

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Oh Hello

I seem to have forgotten to check in here-- maybe my knitting break made me relax too much? In any case, the break is over, and has been for a week now. My wrists feel better, but I seem to have lost some of my knitting mojo. I knit just 10 rows on White Pine between last Tuesday and yesterday-- among other things, I've been spinning like a fiend. The evidence is hard to ignore:


I finished spinning my first batch of singles a week ago Friday, and I couldn't wait to start plying. It actually took longer to make my plying ball than it did to ply the singles. Not to go into great detail, but if you ever want to test the strength of your marriage, sometime try winding a three-stranded plying ball of super high-twist singles with the assistance of your husband/wife. Bonus points if you're both perfectionists and eldest children.

Somewhere around the end of February, I seem to have picked up speed with my spinning. I started in on my second batch of singles Friday-- it's taken me about two and a half hours* to spin as much as I spun in the whole month of February:


At this rate, I think I'm going to finish my sock yarn by the end of April! Huzzah! Meanwhile, I'll have roughly 1/3 of a sweater...



*And I know I'm a huge nerd for keeping track.