Early Saturday Update

I woke early this morning, another headache forced me out of bed shortly after 530. Another night with only 5 hours of sleep. Grrrr.

While I drank my first cup of coffee, I read some more of ‘Wicked’, and finished the chapter. Now I’m up to p. 224, ready to start Part IV. I may be losing interest. I enjoy Elphaba, but don’t really care about the politics and intrigue of Oz. Some of the allegory is interesting, but I feel as though I’m missing most of it. If Part IV is more about her subversive activities, I may not finish this one right now.

Finally there was enough daylight I thought I could knit a bit on the socks. After all my bragging about marking my needles, the first thing I did was pick up the wrong circular needle, and knitted across the first sock. I didn’t notice anything was wrong until I tried to adjust the needles for the next sock. It was easy enough to fix, but it sent me for more coffee and a chaser of Tylenol.

I’m going to the Knitting Social at the LYS this afternoon. I’ve missed too many Saturdays and am determined to get there today. I am also low on dk yarn for the hats. I only have 4 baby hats to donate, and I’ve missed 3 weeks. I feel like a slacker, but I have started socks again. They seem to go very slowly.

That Pi Doily has been calling me, and I was distracted by her siren's song. After much thought, I decided how I would end it off, and started on the 5th section. I intended to knit a small section of a large leaf pattern, echoing the first section of 3x3 leaf, followed by an edging that repeated the snowdrop element. After 7 rounds of 576 sts, I could see I was having a problem. The double decreases that should line up in the middle of the leaf, were slanting to the left. I’m not sure what was happening, but I decided I didn’t like how it looked. I spent yesterday afternoon tinking those 7 rounds. Grrrr. At least I had a lifeline, but it was still tedious.

I think there is something about the delayed decreases that creates the problem. I know I need to move my markers one to the right after each round, but I’m not sure I want to try again. I don’t understand why some lace patterns do that in the round. My first thought is that if I start the repeat in a new spot, it would fix itself. As I study the pattern, I don’t think it can be done, since the increases that balance those double decreases are moving on a diagonal through the entire repeat. I need to study Susanna Lewis’ ‘Knitting Lace.’ She discusses how knitted lace is constructed, perhaps that will enlighten me. I checked that book out from the library, and have renewed it. I hate to take it back, I wish I could find a copy for myself.

It looks like good weather for our bike ride, then I may be able to squeeze in some gardening before my trip to the LYS.