Ahh, a long weekend! I have approximately 142 things I would like to/want to/need to do. I got one of them done today. Which is making me think I need to reconsider at least a few of the rest of them ...
I will, however, give Odessa one more try. I started out late last summer, thinking I would knit it and have it to wear this winter. When I had trouble with it, I thought some time away from it would be a good thing, so I set it aside to try again later. When I was organizing my stash, I came across all of the started-but-not-finished projects, and decided that I would try to finish one thing for every new thing I started.
So, I sat down with my yarn, which has the beads strung on to it, my pattern, and my circular needles. The ribbing looked great! Then I got to the part where you start the actual pattern. The instructions are a) very clearly written, and b) not all that complicated. I imagine that once you got going on it, you would have it memorized after one or two pattern repeats.
But I may never know. There I was knitting away, following the pattern, and feeling very proud of myself. I even managed to get the beads knitted in properly. So I was sailing along, counting 110 stitches for each round. Except then I got to a round that had only 108 stitches ... then 105 ... then ... well, I ripped it out, put it away until the next day, and worked on a pair of socks I'm knitting for myself.
The next day, things just went smoothly again, until all of a sudden - yep, I no longer had 110 stitches. Which is ridiculous, because each pattern repeat is ten stitches, and I was trying to count them as I was going along, so that if I had to rip out a round, I might be able to recognize the mistake. Except I never could. So, out the whole thing - perfect ribbing and all - came, and I put it all away for the past couple of weeks.
I cast on 110 stitches earlier today. I am going to try this evening to get the ribbing done. And then tomorrow, I am going to sit down and see if I can get it to work. Because to be honest with you, now it's personal.
Tales of the Stupid
This week marked the serious arrival of my nemesis - ice. Love it in drinks, hate it on the ground. I am one of the few people in the universe who enjoys winter. I am happy that it finally started to feel like winter, and was disappointed at the lame amount of snow we've gotten so far.** But ice, other than where it should be (the North Pole, Antarctica), is not good.
Last week, they were already predicting "precipitation" for this week. First it was a small amount of snow. Then it was supposed to be more. Then it was the ubiquitous "wintry mix," and finally, it was supposed to start as snow and end as rain, creating ice and dangerous conditions.
So we did end up with ice, and any snow that fell got rained on, then froze, so it was iced-over snow. Which leads to this installment of Tales of the Stupid.
Walking to work on Thursday, I noticed a woman coming towards me, wrapped in a puffy down-type coat, hat, scarf, gloves ... and open-toed stiletto heels! She was doing the kind of mincy-stepped walk you see Chinese women with bound feet do in old movies. When she passed me, she said, "Oh my, it's so cold and icy!" Amazingly, I said nothing to her in response.
Then I turned down a side street, and there was a guy digging his car out. He was taking big shovelfuls of icy snow, and flinging them over his shoulder, towards the sidewalk. One of the icy snow chunks hit me on the shoulder, and I said, "Hey watch it," to which he replied, "Well, I have to dig out my car!" Then I said (and politely, I must add), "Well try to watch where you're throwing ice chunks." And he responded, "Well, if you were normal like everyone else, and drove, it wouldn't be a problem!"
**No, I do not particularly enjoy it when it is 5 degrees, and the wind chill is -20; nor do I wish we had 100 inches of snow like folks in upstate New York; and it does upset me that people and animals have died in places where they have had extreme cold and snow. But having said that, it's WINTER, and I live in Philadelphia - it's not supposed to be 65 degrees, OK???
5 comments:
Boy do I miss Philly. People don't even talk to you here;-)
Yeah, it has been extremely cold here and it is snowing at this moment.
Odessa looks nice. I never beaded any knit wear. It took me 7 starts on my current sock project before I got it right.
Bridget, you crack me up.
Out here in the burbs, there was a photograph in the local newspaper of an affluent woman shoveling her driveway in a full=length mink coat. (!) She probably inherited five flea-bitten coats from Mumsy but is too cheap to buy a snowblower. Oh the strange culture of the wealthy WASP.
Maybe that woman learned how to use shoes from those tv shows where women can run after a perp, gun a-blazing, on a beach, in slo-mo --
Those stilettos remind me too much of foot-binding.
I'm lucky I can keep my balance in flats!
Oh my goodness, you certainly had your examples of rude people. Reminds me of one of my best friends relating a story when she went to watch our hockey team on an away trip to one of our main rivals. The mother of one of the players from the opposing team was sitting in front of her and would not sit down while the play was going on. M nicely asked her to sit down, and the woman said "But my son's skate blade broke" My friend said "What are you going to do, sew it back on?" My friend is in her sixties and is no shrinking violet although she is 5'2" 115lbs.
You did well. Oh Knitting? I can't even begin to imagine knitting with beads. I'm impressed! I hope it works out well for you.
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