WIPW 3/13/13, A Bump in the Olivia Petit Road and Library Whimsies

ON THE NEEDLES

I have a couple of things, as usual, in the process of knitting up, frogging or time out. The first one up today went through all three stages yesterday, the Lolita vest. Here’s what went down – Rewind to Monday evening. Happily knitting, patting myself on the back for doing such a good job of staying on Task Lolita, even when the new yarn on the block, Knitpicks Comfy Sport in Honeydew, was calling me out to get acquainted and get started on the sweater(s) I had planned for it. Final pat on the back and then to bed. On inspection of my progress yesterday morning, I noticed that somehow I’d gotten a few, surely not more than three or so, stitches off in the pattern and now part of the openwork was wonky and didn’t match up with the previous openwork. Tinked back to correct, fixed – still not right, tinked back and tried again – still didn’t suit me, tinked back one more time, reknit and finally produced something I can live with. Since it’s knitted side to side, at the moment it’s just a wad of knitted fabric, but the spring sunshine was too great to pass up this morning and I took a pic anyway.

I’ve hit a pothole in the road on the sweet Olivia Petit sweater and haven’t been able to figure out what’s going on. I cast on, did the set up row for the neck and raglan increase, so far so good, worked the next increase row and that’s where the wheels came off. Too many stitches when I went to count. OK, operator error, frogged and started again. Same thing, too many stitches. Must have misread pattern. Frogged and started again after going over the pattern with a fine toothed comb, counting and recounting, reading and rereading. Still screwed, went to bed. I’m knitting the smallest size, so I’m thinking maybe going up one pattern size will work. Please. Will frog one last time and start again. If no go this time, I’m swallowing my pride, taking it to Yarn Mart and letting them figure it out. Frustration overload.

BY THE BOOK

I finished an absolutely, positively wonderful book yesterday, I started it Monday and couldn’t stop listening until it was finished, An Invisible Thread: The True Story of an 11 Year Old Panhandler, a Busy Sales Executive and an Unlikely Meeting with Destiny, by Laura Schroff. Goosebumps though the whole thing! Incredible heartache, incredible joy, incredible book!

AT THE LIBRARY

I’m a huge library fan and not just for the books; it’s a favorite place for me to sit, knit and people watch for an hour or so whenever I can and I’m always excited to check out the collections on display. This week was a particular treat, with a collection of pottery. Surprisingly, my iPhone pictures through the glass turned out really well. I’m disappointed that there was no artist or artists mentioned but that didn’t cut the cool.