Cleaning Up

Wow, what a whiny post last time! I'm kinda embarrassed. I had just finished grafting the pieces together, and wasn't feeling very happy about it. Looking back at the stole, I suppose the grafting isn't TOO bad. Only another knitter or someone who was looking very closely would be able to see that it's a bit uneven in places. So I'm not feeling too bad about that just now. I haven't even attempted to block it again though yet. I've just been letting it sit there. It's a lovely pattern though, it's just my lack of abilities that I think I was upset over. I like to be good at things first time lol. But in a couple of days, I'll set it out to block again, see if I can stop it curling. Lol, where's the starch?!

I've not really done any knitting recently, since my bout of finishing things off. I've set up a couple of things, I ripped out the rasta blankie as the crochet was using up far too much yarn. I'm going to do something else with it, that I'm quite excited about, but I'll make a full post on that later. I also ripped out the neck of a jumper that I was knitting for my bf. I was actually knitting it about a year ago, but I made the neck too tight, and it wouldn't even go over a child's head! So it's been sitting there, and I finally dragged it out to work on it again. It doesn't need much work, just the top of the front and back. What I did wrong last time was picking up the neck stitches, then knitting them. It wasn't till I read a post by Grumperina, I think it was, explaining that it worked better if you picked up and knitted a stich at a time. I've done it on other sweaters since then, and it definitely does work better that way, so I'm going to try it on this one. Lol, it's been so long since I looked at this, that I had to swatch again to find out what size needles I used! (2.75 with 4 ply yarn in case you're interested lol)

Oh, and I've been cleaning! I got a new Dyson, and I love it!



It's the bestest hoover ever! I love to just watch all the dirt swirling around. I know, weird. You don't need to say anything. I know. But it's so cool! My dog leaves a lot of hair lying around - a LOT! - and this thing is brilliant. My carpet is actually cream, not gray! Who knew? ;)

(Not that carpet though - that's the horrible kitchen carpet. Ignore it.)

Knitting and Crochet progress

Progress has been made on both the knitting and crochet fronts, but it's been a bit of a slog. The Rasta Blankie is still growing.


Colors are still a bit off, but you get the idea. I'm going through that phase I get with every big project, wondering if I like it, or whether I should just rip it out. But I've learned that I go through this phase, and I try just to ignore it now. It still nags away at the back of my mind though (am I wasting my time making this? Could I be making something even better?).

So I cast on a knitting project for when that nagging voice gets too loud. 'Blackcurrant Ice Cream' by Jean Moss from Knitting Magazine, April 2005. It's a lovely pattern. I'm making it in a navy blue 4ply, and I think it'll look really nive when it's done. But. (There's always a 'but', isn't there?) The pattern works in chart form. Difficult, but not a bad thing really. I cast on a few times trying to figure it out. Well, it wouldn't be a bad thing if there wasn't a HUGE error in the chart. Two of the cable patterns have garter stitches going up the back of them in the bottom half! Now, I know from looking at the photos in the magazine that it's not meant to have them. And I know from looking at the top part of the chart that it's not meant to have them. Luckily I had only done a few rows before I had to rip out and do it again, this time making the corrections as I go along. Here's the photo of the current progress:


And yes, that is I-cords at the bottom! The way it's made, it looks as if the cables continue off the bottom into cords. So that's the good thing about making this pattern - I learned to make I-cords! And they're so much fun! It was hard to stop at the required 5". I wanted to keep going and going! (Yes, yes, I know I'm weird!)


So all in all, progress is being made, difficult though it sometimes is. It's all a learning process, isn't it? That's what I'll keep telling myself.

Rasta Rhythms

The rasta blankie (its new official name) is still growing. Every so often I get worried about the colors, will it be too weird? It sometimes looks like some psycadelic escapee from the 70s. But then I figure, what if it is weird? Do I really want a boring neutral tone blanket? It might turn out to be nice to have a cheerful, (very) colorful blanket in the middle of winter. I'm just going to keep going and let the yarn turn out how it wants to be. If it's horrific then I can always rip it back and make something else. That's the beauty of knitting. It's permanent, in that you can make something and have a FO right there that you created, and yet if it's too horrible it's not like sewing, you can always rip it back and make something else.

Practiced some belly dance this morning. I think I'm getting better at putting moves together when improvising, I used to stop all the time, not knowing what to do next. But today I managed to keep going even though I didn't know the song. I think it helps that I've been learning the rhythms used in Egyptian music. This site is very useful for learning about the rhythms, what they are, what they sound like etc. I also got a couple of drum cds with different rhythms on them, to practice listening to. I used to think there was no point in learning about the drum rhythms, weren't they just the same as the drumming I hear all the time when listening to music? But as I've gone on, I've realised that no, they're not the same, that's why Middle Eastern music sounds so different. And as I've learned more about them, my dancing has definitely improved. I'm listening to the music differently now, and I kind of know what's going to come next, but don't ask me how I know this! And when I'm just listening to music, not dancing, I can pick out the names of some of the rhythms! Yay! I can pick out maqsoum, masmoudi and saaidi. Still a lot more to learn, but it's so exciting finding out more about the music and feeling like I might be 'getting' it.