The pattern was a pain in the ass to learn, but once I stopped trying to "fix" it (HAH!) and just worked it the way the book said, it turned out okay. The yarn was splitty and the edges of the piece are less-than-gorgeous, but it's done and will be even cuter with matching booties. Originally I bought a Clover circular needle, but it tried to poke my eye out so I bought an Addi Natura circular needle instead; love at first stitch, let me tell you, and well worth the $15. I haven't worked with circs (as they are apparently called in the biz) much, but this brand is pretty f'in sweet, yo. I think I'll try this little set again with better yarn and see how it goes, since I'm sure as heck not giving THIS flawed gem to anyone. *ahem* My perfectionist is showing.
Faina's Scarf:
This one will be for my mom, who picked out the yarn (Cascade 220 wool) and the pattern last time I visited her. Yea, remember what I said about enabling eachother? Mmhmm. It is by far the most complicated thing I've ever done, and I had to go back to traditional continental-style knitting from Annie Modesitt's combination knitting. I think I'm too noobish to use non-traditional knitting styles, so I'm just going to stick with continental for now, even though I like Modesitt's style better. I need to somehow rig my embroidery stand to hold my knitting chart. Perhaps a clipboard? Hmmm.
Papa's Scarf:
Oh lord. I want to throw the damn thing away; the only thing keeping me from such a drastic measure is that the yarn is gorgeous. Obviously papa's birthday has come and gone, and the scarf remains unfinished. It started like this:
Super-pretty, right? Here's a close-up of the stitch:
But of COURSE I ignored the suggestion of the knitting store lady (always a bad idea. ALWAYS!) and the second skein striped differently from the first. My dad isn't a picky guy - he would love it no matter what - but if I inherited my craftsy inclinations from my lovely mother, I inherited my perfectionist inclinations from my dad. And I know it would have bothered me that his scarf was striped weird. So, I ripped out the WHOLE DAMN THING, toddled to my LYS, where the knitting lady kindly let me re-wind my skeins, and started over with a new pattern:
I've used this pattern before to make my beloved Zig Zag scarf, but I think with the myriad colors in my dad's yarn, the original stitch would look much better. So today when I'm done, I will be ripping the scarf out for what feels like the 50th time to go back to the original pattern. ARGH! I am consoled by how lovely it will be when done, and that the stitch itself isn't ridiculously hard. Whew!
Going along with my quest to document the lives of extraterrestrials on our planet, Mr. Darcy recharged in the sun today:
But then his alien started to show:
It's a good thing he's so loving, otherwise I'd have out-ed him to SETI long ago.
