We’re having some trouble motivating

We’re having some trouble motivating around here today.

I have a ton of work to do–two deadlines coming up fast–but I just want to lounge around and knit. The real danger of being a freelancer is the Siren call of the knitting. Sigh.

Last night was meeting number two of our new knitting circle. We had a great time. The two new knitters each showed up with a good amount of knitted scarf that looked quite good. We were joined by Fernanda, who’s from Argentina and knits (incredibly quickly) by tucking one needle under each arm. The needle points then shoot forward and somehow stitches get made that way. I’d never seen anyone knit that way and I still can’t wrap my head totally around the mechanics of it. It looked like a cricket rubbing its legs together and growing fabric. Fernanda’s a very experienced knitter but has never used circular needles–just isn’t done in Argentina, she says. She was fascinated by the socks on two circs method that Andrea and I were using, so she’s going to pick up some circs and some sock yarn for our next meeting. Another convert! 🙂

And what was I doing last night? Frogging all twelve inches of the tank top I was making for a friend. Genius that I am, I somehow managed to screw up the math when deciding how many stitches to cast on initially, and then screwed up my horizontal measuring (which, I admit, I only did once because the gauge was right so it never occured to me to check my math skills). So I was knitting it in the round and it came time to split it to flat to shape the arm holes. Once it was on two needles it could lay flat and I realized that the tank that was supposed to be 38″ was actually…are you ready for this? FORTY FOUR. And with WITNESSES in the house, no less! Nothing to do but frog it. Ugh. I cast on again with better math last night and am two inches back into it. Of course, it’ll go a lot faster the second time around without all those extra stitches.

I was a Lit major. I never promised math skills.