Well, That Was Painful

..... or what happens when you don't follow(read) ALL the directions.

That, my friends, is about 3 hours of unproductive making-things-a-whole-lot-harder-than-they-are, and about 1 hour of actual productive knitting.

Last night I had a rare LONG stretch of knitting time ahead of me, about 3-1/2 hours. Pretty much unheard of at my house.

But, I seem to have no project to work on. I've spent all week casting on and off for various things that weren't quite right, wrong yarn for the pattern, just didn't like, too hard... (I never did get my head wrapped around the Swallowtail Shawl - that has been ditched for another lifetime) - just general unproductive knitting ever since I pulled Green Gable from the flames. I'm waiting for yarn for something new, but I just need something to get me through until ye ol' mailperson arrives.


However, I'll be darned if I'm gonna waste 3 hours of my favorite TV and knitting time with nothing to knit.

So, about one good hour was wasted complaining to Kaity and the cats that I don't know what to knit. They really couldn't care less. Then, I spend another 15 minutes trying to make my arm fall off winding 880 yards of laceweight from hank to cake.

Then I decide I don't want to use that yarn after all.

I finally decide on Ene's Scarf, which I have wanted to knit for quite a while now. I read the directions and note that instead of like most shawl patterns I've seen, this one is knit from big to small, instead of starting out with a couple of stitches and getting huge. Hmm.... cast on 375 stitches, with the yarn doubled. That in itself almost stops me - but I am determined.

So I spend about another hour trying to figure out HOW I'm going to do this, and how much yarn I'm gonna need for a doubled long-tail cast on of 375 stitches... but finally end up with 375 doubled stitches successfully transferred from a mess of yarn wound all over my living room, and wound around two helpful cats, along with a bazillion stitch markers - safely to my needles. I thought about taking a picture of the whole yarn/cat mess, but I was having trouble counting to 375.

By the way - the helpful "estimate" I Googled of 1" of yarn per stitch cast on is a HUGE over-estimate. There was a LOT left over for the cats.

WAIT!!! Did I fail to mention I NOW re-read the pattern and note this is supposed to be a knitted cast on.... well that explains a lot. Like the fact that I must be half brain dead. Talk about the villiage idiot...

Anyhooooo - OK. Good to go - sit down start knitting away, thinking that's a pretty clever, if not unwieldly, way to get 750 stitches onto a needle... knitting away, stop to check my progress.... Hmmm, I seem to have finished the pattern, but still have a TON of stitches left on my needle. Hmmm, half to be exact... Oy- I've been knitting into every stitch instead of knitting into them double. They didn't make that part very clear - or at least not clear enough for ME. They only want you to have 375 stitches, I guess the doubled-up part is just so you have a nice thick sturdy border - or maybe just to confuse and test you. They never really explain that part.

Sweet mother of "purl"..... you've got to be kidding me. Tarter SAUCE!!! (I really shouldn't be allowed anything other than plastic needles and acrylic yarn) This is total amateur hour. But, you know me, there's no way I'm going back now and RE-casting on all those stitches. We all learned from my last post - I don't go backwards. WhatEVER the consequences. So, I just cut off all the extra cast on stitches, turn around, and start knitting.

Kaity swears there's a reason I can't do this, and the fact that my cast on edge may now be a little tight, being that I've knit into every stitch, instead of two at a time, kind of nags at the back of my mind.... but supreme hack-knitter than I seem to be lately, I will continue on... and have for three rows. I can ignore that little voice for as long as it takes.

That's right, 3-1/2 hours of knitting time = three rows. Three rows I hope do not come back to bite me on the butt later.

I'll be sure to let you know.

I hope my new yarn gets here soon.... and I can figure out how to read THAT pattern correctly.

EDITED TO ADD: Ok - I did it. I frogged it. I started over. I'm going to do it right. This is HUGE. I am proud. I am NOT a hack knitter.