The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Long post ahead, so settle in. (This is what happens when I don't blog for over a week.)

The Good
Lolly's Project Spectrum 4.0 began this month. Project Spectrum is a project-along (does not have to be knitting) in which the primary goal is to celebrate color. The theme of this cycle of Project Spectrum is the cardinal directions. Did you know that many cultures see a relationship between each direction on the compass rose—North, South, East, and West—and color, season, element, and natural material? For March and April, the designated direction for the project-along is North. Green, winter, earth, and stones/gems/rocks are the associated color, season, element, and natural material. Below is the inspiration for my first project.



The photo in the upper left corner is what my backyard looks like in late winter. Branches and leaves that fell last November were buried under the snow for months and now lie wet, waiting to be cleaned up. Among these are small signs of leafy green new life.

The photo in the lower left corner was taken at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore on Lake Superior a few summers ago during my trip to the Upper Peninsula. The blue-green color in the rock is oxidized copper.

The yarns are Pagewood Farm Denali in Maple Leaf (upper right) and Navajo (lower right). I just love this yarn. I'm using it to make Joelle Hoverson's Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.



Another good thing is that progress has been made on my selbuvotter mitten.



Yeah, remember that? I went to mitten group on Monday and wunderinstructor Janeen taught me a new way to hold the yarn in my left hand. The trick is to keep my index finger low; I was holding it too high up off the needle, so my left hand and forearm were aching after only a few rounds. Not fun. No fun = no work on the selbu. But now I've gotten up past the first star in the pattern. One star to go, then I meet with Janeen again on Monday to finish the tip and do the thumb.

Progress has also been made on my sock yarn blankie.



This progress is primarily due to a new tradition we have going on at ThreadBear: Beer o'Clock. Well, really it's called the Memory Keeper Throw Group, but I like to call it Beer o'Clock. Those of us working on the blankie (and a few of us who are not) meet at ThreadBear on Friday evenings to swap yarn, knock out a few squares, partake in food and drink, and have some laughs. Good times.

The last good thing? New hair color. Needed a pick-me-up.



The Bad
Stash acquisition. Part of this has to do with several trips to ThreadBear for mitten group and Beer o'Clock. 'Nough said. I'm too embarrassed to say more.

I am still knitting with the yarn that hates me.

I have two projects that have to be finished. Literally, I am within 80% of them being done, but I just can't bring myself to finish them. Seven projects on the needles = too many.

I am losing my family's NCAA Basketball Tournament bracket competition. I fear that my bragging rights may be gone. Y'all need to rally for me.

The Ugly
Second day of spring in Michigan.



Scooter, however, could care less about ugly dead foliage and yard clean-up. For him, spring is about one thing and one thing only:

In Which Knitting Finally Kicks My Butt

I don't know who these Norwegians think they are, but knitting shouldn't be this hard.

Throughout these past ten and a half months of my knitting life, whenever I've been about to embark upon learning a new technique, I thought it would be hard. At first I thought purling would be hard. Ha. Then I thought increasing and decreasing would be hard—I just couldn't wrap my head around the idea that you could add or take away stitches. Knitting in the round, knitting on DPNs, knitting socks, knitting cables... I thought they all would be hard, but after doing them for a few hours I realized that none of them are as hard as I thought they would be.

Then I took this Selbu class. Well, before I took this Selbu class, I took another stranded mitten class to knit these mittens, and it just didn't seem that hard. That is, until I got home and realized that I had been knitting Kevlar. Really. I know that there are no vital organs in one's hands, but if the U.S. military or Secret Service ever finds a need to protect their paws, they should just have me knit them some mittens. My mitten is knit so tightly I'm pretty sure it could stop a bullet. I can barely get my hand into it. Wunderinstructor Janeen says this is common among first-time stranded knitters and "these things can be blocked out."

Will she or won't she be able to get her hand into the mitten?



Only with a very firm tug.

Scooter in the background, wanting to attack an evil urban squirrel that is taunting him through the window.

Back to the Selbu mittens. They are harder because the yarn is finer. They are harder because the pattern is more intricate. The pattern I am working, from Terri Shea's Selbuvotter: Biography of a Knitting Tradition:



And of course, I'm still contending with using both hands to knit, holding one color in each hand. Have I mentioned before that I'm very, very right-handed? My left hand is good for two things: holding stuff and typing. That's about it. I tried to throw a piece of candy with my left hand to a student in Spanish class the other day, and it veered way off course. Kids and I had a good laugh over it. Soy muy, muy diestra.

But I was doing well in Selbu class yesterday. I had learned a new cast-on and learned how to turn a hem so that you can't see the cast-on. Look... pretty.



I had knitted a pretty, lacy cuff. The lace pulled in the hem to make it look scalloped. Look... pretty.



And I had started the hand. When I got to the stranded part, Janeen directed me to knit the mitten inside out. That way, the strands would be a little looser and the inside circumference would be a little longer, sort of how the outside circumference of a track is longer than its inside circumference. Kevlar problem solved, right?

Right. Last night I came home from class and had a few more rows to knit as homework. I thought, "Let's see if the mitten is too hard to get over my hand." I turned it right side out, pulled it over my hand, and PERFECT! It's snug, but it's stretchy, so I didn't have to ease my hand in with a shoehorn like I do with the other mitten.

And that's when I noticed that something is rotten in state of Norway. Very, very rotten.

See the center of the chevron pattern of the cuff?



See the center stitch of the hand pattern?



DO YOU SEE THAT THEY DO NOT LINE UP?

The picture of the mittens in the Selbuvotter book, knit as they should be.



Do you think I might have noticed the not-lining-up part sooner had the mitten not been turned inside out while I was knitting it?

Does anyone know how to say "D'oh!" in Norwegian?