When the Knit Hits the Fan

Today was one of those days. I should not have been knitting. Once in a while it happens, and when it does it's like knitting backwards into negative space. I think my mistakes today were due to a nasty combination of hubris and multitasking. This is always disastrous. It started out innocently enough. I went to the potting shed to find a plastic pot that could serve as a frame for my posie cozy. Check. Then I started some chicken stock. No problem. Then I went stash diving for a bit of Cash Iroha I knew I had kicking around. Check again. Then I did a bit of tidying. Then I heard my husband shouting. Oh no, the stock....Oops. Thanks to his quick reflexes, the veggies I was browning didn't go black, but that was a close one. After that, the day sort of collapsed like a building demolition in slow motion. I ended up ripping back as much, or more, than I knit. It's a silly little side project that's supposed to be for fun, but that of course, is the problem. I have a hard time taking it seriously. I was translating a stitch pattern written flat to a pattern in the round, and I just sort of breezed through the directions. Yep, yep, yep, O.K. I got it. Well, the posie cozy is not to be trifled with. It got its sweet revenge. I think I ripped out the same four rows, four times. Sometimes, when I have a day like this, that plain brown stockinette seems like a big mug of knitting hot chocolate. What I should have done, was put the knitting down, and take care of the million other things around the house. That's what I should have done. That would have been the mature thing to do. Unfortunately for me, and for my house, that's not what happened. It became an epic battle between the posie cozy and the knitter.

Just to give you an idea of what it looks like to knit into negative territory. This is a swatch in a "Flecked Tweed" slipped stitch pattern,




that I abandoned in favor of this "Simulated Basketweave" pattern.





This four inches of knitting took four hours, yep, four. It also took a good number of four letter words. Tonight I'm going to snuggle up with the brown stockinette, and savor the mindless knitting.

P.S. The last photo is the most accurate, in terms of color.