It Happens to Everyone

I take satisfaction in knowing I am not the only one to make enormous, colossal, gigantic, monumental mistakes in knitting. There are plenty of such mistakes almost every time I pick up the needles. Some I can fix without too much effort, some are fiddly, some can be finessed into looking OK, and others just have to be frogged. In short, if you knit you also need to know how to appropriately correct your knitting.

Stephanie labeled this photo "dammit" (photo from yarnharlot.ca)

The photo above is from the Yarn Harlot blog. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee is knitting from a Schoolhouse Press publication called Latvian Mittens by Lizbeth Upitis. Aren't these Fair Isle beauties exquisite. Stephanie writes with great satisfaction about her attention to detail as she worked the braids on the mittens with the left mitten's facing left and the right, right.

But as you continue to look at those mittens you start thinking your eyes have gone awry. The colours of the designs above the braid pop in different ways and then it hits you. Sure enough, Stephanie reversed the main colour so the design is done in the dark teal on the right mitten in the photo and in white on the left. Now you see it , right? It is like an optical illusion. She got the detail of that braid so perfect and then missed the rather big deal of main vs. contrast colours.*

I am not laughing at the Yarn Harlot here, indeed quite the opposite. How many times have I done things like the following: knit the head of a dog facing its tail. frogged a baby sweater so often the yarn started to show wear and tear, or done surgery to repair a mistake in lace. If I didn't show you the mistakes I make and have to fix there would be days without anything to report. I totally sympathize with Stephanie.

This is handmade work (not created by a machine) so it will be imperfect and sometimes the head and the hands don't accurately follow the directions or they just miss a big element of the knitting. It happens. But for the Yarn Harlot to publicly admit a mistake like the one above, well it shows even the stars of knitting are human. For someone like me, not preeminent in the field of knitting in any way, it is totally fine to make the types of mistakes I do. Thanks Harlot for your honesty. You could have left the mistake unreported, but instead by sharing it you made me realize you too are human and not necessarily a knitting deity. Even you make colossal errors.

BTW not more than three days later the Yarn Harlot showed off the finished pair. You can see those Latvian mittens, here.

Postscript ~~ From the Yarn Harlot's book, At Knit's End, Stephanie writes the following:

There is nothing like working out a piece of knitting to make you feel intelligent. Of course,
there's nothing quite like getting your superior intelligence kicked by a piece of yarn and
two needles to let the air right out of that self-confidence.

*The solution suggested by knitters reading the post? Make two other mittens, one to match the dark teal as the main colour, the other to match the white background. Clever knitters! They too have had to fix mistakes like this I suspect.

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing. I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away. Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close. Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening. As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend. Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration. I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time. One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock. So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep. Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot. And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms. (BTW

Yarn Barf

It's back to quirkiness and time to step away again from the cuteness for a while. But as you see I'm someone who slips from one to the other without much effort so anticipate this back and forth to be my new normal. A dramatization of me in the midst of my startitist frenzy Yarn barf . I'm willing to bet you hadn't thought of putting those two words together, had you? It just so happens yarn barf can be a reoccurring pain for those of us who use yarns that come in a skein instead of a hank. (No pun intended regarding the current Noro virus, well maybe a little pun.) Skeins of yarn wound by the manufacturer These are hanks which need to be wound into balls If you look closely at the picture on the right you'll see the start on the millet yellow skein at the centre right of the photo. Its start can easily be seen coming from the centre of the skein onto the violet skein to the left. Easy to find, right! Sure but what about the remaining 4

Flagel Knitting Files

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