Sunday, February 10, 2013

And just five short days later...another knitted thing.

OK, so that last post has been totally haunting me.

Plus, I am at the tail end of my much revered and over planned Break Between Semesters, during which time I had planned to do All Things due to the complete fullness of my life once class resumes.

Tomorrow.

SHIITE.

So, in the name of Doing All Things and while I was still drunk with the power of knowing how to re-cast on a cast off hem, I decided to go back and fix Sweater #2 to make the sleeves longer and to nail down those son of a bitching roller shade hems.

Let it be known that I do not enjoy rolled cuffs.

DO NOT ENJOY.

Now, even after thorough searching of the knitting bible, the book housing my favorite sweater pattern that I've never been able to satisfactorily complete, the book housing Bubba's perfect sweater and the world's biggest knitting resource - I still wasn't able to find a method for casting off in stockinette that results in both a flat cuff that DOES NOT ROLL FUCKING STOPPIT while maintaining a straight stockinette stitch.

It just doesn't exist I guess.

Or I gave up before resulting to extreme blocking techniques.

One or the other.

So, my final OK FINE I GIVE UP solution was to add a textured cuff.

Straight garter stitch was out because that felt like I was mailing it in somehow, that diagonal stitch that looked so cool in Vogue Knitting sounded complicated and like something I'd probably fuck up resulting in a flesh wound to some poor nearby soul (probably me via knitting needle) and any kind of ribbing seemed boring and predictable so I went with a good old favorite - seed stitch.

It's not fancy - just a K1P1 repeat on the first row and the a P1K1 repeat on the second - but I figured a few rows of that on all cuffs would result in a cuff that would STAY THE FUCK PUT so that no one would have to die and so that I'd have a new sweater to keep me warm instead of rolling up into an off-putting woolen tube top while sitting through many MANY hours of lectures and multiple hours of lab work in the greenhouse and field that begin in, oh 12 hours from now.

SHIITE again.

Don't even think about rolling. DO NOT THINK IT.

Thankfully, after masterfully removing my cast off rows (I'm so a pro at this now), adding a bit of length to the sleeves and three rows of seed stitch to the cuffs and casting off again - this is now a totally wearable sweater.

Oh yes. I shall wear THE PANTS off of you. Which makes no sense whatsoever since you're a sweater.

OH SWEET MERCY YES PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

Why, are those cuffs and a  hem that DO NOT ROLL? Yes. Yes they are.

I WIN, CUFFS. I totally win.

So yay.

I feel triumphant, awash in warm cozy sweaters and also overwhelmed because even though I totally killed my To Do list (triumphant list ass kicking recounting coming soon - with triumphant photos), I still need to pack my bag, make my lunch, sort out the vitamins for the week (I could recount my vitamin situation, too. Anyone interested in how that's going?), pack the Crock Pot with tomorrow's dinner and, you know, have a minor melt down because this semester is going to be harder than last semester because it involves four classes instead of three and two of which that involve chemistry.

People - I have not done chemistry since, I think, the ninth grade when we probed bits of Happy Meal for its nutrient content, so you know there wasn't a lot of math involved since 0x0=0 and such.

Basically, I'm scared pants-less about the chemistry because we all know that also involves the math that I don't do and who knows if/how I'll be able to manage a 4.0 GPA with this extra class, but HEY let's just run off crazy into the Spring term while also ramping up the business, starting twice as many plants indoors and hey at least three other huge things that I will, I'm sure, talk endlessly about in no time at all.

I'm starting to think that I left the whole, "Take a day off" thing off my To Do list and that this was a major mistake, but at least I know what I'll wear tomorrow.

5 comments:

  1. Listen, anyone who can speak so fluently about numbered stitches and whatever can certainly make chemistry her bitch. Or something.

    Good luck, Finn. May the Force be with you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I want you to know I ate kale on accident on Friday night. A big chunk of that garnish sit was on my burger and I did not see it until it was far too late.

    I think you lied when you said that it was edible. Matt is thankful I did not vomit onto the table since it was Friday and very crowded in there. But you better believe I slammed my entire glass of Coke to get it down.

    In other news, I just bought a sweater and after one wash I have rolled cuffs and I'm angry. Fucking Chinese kids. Even they can't do it right. They can put iPhones together but they can't give me a sweater without a rolled cuff? Crap, I tell you.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lovely sweater. Mine is still on the needles. One of the shithead cats got ahold of it and messed it up a little bit and I don't want to look at it.

    Also I'm interested in the vitamin situation.

    ReplyDelete
  4. 1) You have serious knitting stamina to be cranking out all these shirts/sweaters!
    2) Definitely going to have to try the seed stitch to finish stuff off. Ribbing DOES get boring and also seems to need to be a bit long for some parts to be really effective...

    ReplyDelete

[2013 update: You can't comment as an anonymous person anymore. Too many douchebags were leaving bullshit SPAM comments and my inbox was getting flooded, but if you're here to comment in a real way like a real person, go to it.]

Look at you commenting, that's fun.

So, here's the thing with commenting, unless you have an email address associated with your own profile, your comment will still post, but I won't have an email address with which to reply to you personally.

Sucks, right?

Anyway, to remedy this, I usually come back to my posts and post replies in the comment field with you.

But, if you ever want to email me directly to talk about pumpkins or shoes or what it's like to spend a good part of your day Swiffering - shoot me an email to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom.

Cheers.