A Little Yarn On The Side

This freak of never-ending-mohair-edging has driven me to lengths no other project has ever done. Yesterday, I cleaned the sewing room. Not clean enough that I'm willing to post pictures of it or anything--let's not get crazy here--but it is cleaner than it has been since the Christmas Gift Blizzard of '07. Bare table has even been glimpsed. Then, in a moment of true weakness, I slipped..... In the corner, looking lost and a little shy, was a lovely worsted weight cotton And I know--I have this great thing going with the mohair, but look at this: 82 yards to the skein and size 8 needles. SIZE 8s! With those I could knock 3-4 balls out of the stash each week! I'm not proud, but.... before I knew what had happened, I had 7 rows of Sitcom Chic on the needles. I was WEAK--beaten down by those unending rows of edging--1368 rows!!!! Can you blame me?

There are 12 swoopies, not 10!!! I'm not quite halfway. Heaven help me, I may have just lost the will to knit. I'm going to go clean the sewing room--that involves NO mohair and very little purple..... And somebody needs a "time out:"

Last night it was just me, the Lady's Circular Cape, a REALLY strange movie called Lord Love a Duck that I rented in honor of the passing of Harvey Korman and which I still don't understand, and the last of the original yarn for the cape: I was truly planning on not blogging until I could say I had used up my 52nd ball of yarn, but that last little bit of yarn is much bigger than it looks. I just crossed over the halfway mark on the edging (YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and still have enough yarn left for another swoopy. Not that I wouldn't have run out of yarn, as I'm only halfway around the edging and it's a LOT of edging: Jane Sowerby, I'm so glad I doubted you! Not that she isn't a perfectly lovely person--I'm sure she is. But I think we can all agree that it's a good thing she didn't decide to become an accountant. Knitters might forgive you for being off by 20%, but the IRS is pretty touchy about stuff like that. 4 1/2 left to go!

"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons" -- T. S. Eliot "I have measured out my life with fluffy purple swoopies" --Toni Sutton I'm up to 4 swoopies now. It's not halfway, but it's 4 instead of 3. And the only thing that is keeping me from flinging myself at the stash to find something--anything--different to knit is the knowledge that I have only about 70 yards more on this ball of yarn and I can add it to the TALLY. Well, that and the white chocolate martini I have promised myself when I do finish this ball. I might bathe in them when I finally finish this shawl...

This purple in fact-- It might take me that long. See those swoopy-parts? The bottom of the shawl actually has 10 of them. I have knit 3. I have all this: still left to knit. And this: is how much of the original yarn I have left to use, which is about 100 yards. I guess as long as I broke my one-year ban on buying yarn, I'm glad I just proved it was totally & completely necessary, but what if I hadn't been able to find more of the yarn???? Victorian Lace Today is so far off on yardage requirements that it is SCARY. I bought 3 more balls--681 EXTRA yards--and I might use up most of them!!!! That's a pretty big variance, even in lace knitting. And on a related note, 46,000 yards of lace yarn might indeed be a bit.....well...insane, really, but I just used up another 227 yards--which of course makes a HUGE difference..... At this rate I could actually RUN OUT of laceweight--probably in 2015???? I shudder at the very thought......

* Everyone else has one, and you are such a "joiner" if merino is involved! * No matter how awful the project is, the other on-line knitters will say nice things about it. * Your family is sick of hearing about the intricacies of lace knitting. * Knitting has become "hip" and it is the first time you are really "with it" and it needs to be documented. * Even if you managed to sew the sleeve to the neckhole, someone online will know how to fix it. * "Real life" people will find your stash insane. The online knitting community will be supportive. And a little jealous if it's REALLY big. * When you are excited that your husband has scheduled a "Boys Night Out" and you excited that you will get quality time alone with some alpaca, the online knitters will understand. And the number ONE reason: The online knitting community is completely & totally fabulous!!!!!!!

The deceptive thing about some lace projects is that it really feels like you're almost done when you reach the edging. The reality is, you're not even close. I have been working on the Lady's Circular Cape pretty faithfully (for me) for the past couple days, and this is how far I've gotten. It looks pretty far & feels pretty far until you look at how far I have left to go just on the bottom. Those are some very closely scrunched stitches, and each of those requires 2 rows of edging. Doing a little math, which is rarely a good idea at such times but I did it anyway, there are 684 stitches on the needle by the time you finish the body. Each of those requires a minimum of 2 rows (sometimes 4, but that's just too overwhelming to contemplate right now), so the bottom ALONE takes 1368 rows of knitted edging. Then there are the 2 sides and the top as well.... Heaven help me. The good news is that in the Year of the Stash Plan, this was optimistically listed as...