Knitting Keeps Me Grounded
Knitting provides many things for me. It calms me down when I'm aggitated or angry. It provides hours of entertainment when I'm bored. It gives me something to do with my hands instead of smoking or eating (although I manage to eat quite a bit already). It makes me happy to handle yarn and look at the beautiful colors. It provides a sense of accomplishment when I do something well. It has brought me into some fellowship that I love - knitters in my community and in blogland. It also keeps me humble. Just when I think I'm a master knitter, the knitting kicks my ass.
Last week I showed you I was nearly done with the back of Lucky. I was working on it Thursday night when Michael and Jessica were over. I had only one more row to go when Michael asked when he could go to bed (he was sleeping on the couch). Of course, I answered with the knitter's refrain - as soon as I finish this row. Problem was, I had the wrong stitch count. Closely exam the knitting - in the last row of clovers I managed to make a 4 leaf clover. I'd leave it and figure something else out if I had done it at the top of the clover so it REALLY looked like a lucky clover. Unfortunately, I put it on the bottom row so there were three leaves on the bottom. ARGH! I ripped down to that row again, finally managed to get all the stitches back on the needles correctly. Such is knitting. I finished up the back and started one of the fronts last night.
Last night I started the final piece of Mariah:
Blast it! Another mistake!! Can you spot it? Let's take a closer look:
I forgot to keep the edge stitches in garter stitch on the right front. NOOOOOOOO!!! OK. I did most of that front in one long evening at SNB, so I could just rip it all up and re-knit it. I'm so sick of these projects, though. I'm having problems with my mantra - it's the proces... it's the process... I could knit a little strip in garter stitch and sew it on. I could also rip out the left front and do an applied i-cord to both edges. The big problem is that I'm supposed to continue this up to the edge of the hood. So, I'll have to mull this for a couple of days before I bite the bullet. What would y'all do?
Non-Knitting Rant
Since I've got my rant on, I'm going to keep going. Who says PBS is a liberal network? Sunday morning while I'm making brunch I turn on PBS and it's some Wall Street Journal show. It's a panel of 4 members of the editorial board of the WSJ. One of the issues they're talking about is the pharmacist rights issue that I'm very interested in, so I was curious what they'd say and kept watching. What a joke this show is. First they talked about something else, which I can't for the life of me remember, but of course they all agreed. Duh! The editors of the WSJ are all going to take a conservative viewpoint on any issue. When you have every guest providing EXACTLY the same point of view, how helpful or informative is that? Why not just have one editor? Then they get to the pharmacist topic and I think, "if these guys are truly conservative, they won't like the religious right dictating access to healthcare". No. All of them agreed that pharmacists should be able to determine what meds they dispense. This despite an actual balanced lead in story showing patients who were unable to get birth control or Plan B because there is only one pharmacist in town and a physician talking about how there's only a short period during which Plan B is effective. One of the editors actually used a restaurant analogy - if you don't like one restaurant you don't have to go there, so if you don't like one pharmacy, you can choose another. WHAT? If this guy really can't see a difference between medical care and french fries, I fear for the analytical future of the WSJ. You do not see a show on Fox News featuring all members of Air America Radio, so I don't want to hear anyone comparing Fox News to PBS ever again.
Last week I showed you I was nearly done with the back of Lucky. I was working on it Thursday night when Michael and Jessica were over. I had only one more row to go when Michael asked when he could go to bed (he was sleeping on the couch). Of course, I answered with the knitter's refrain - as soon as I finish this row. Problem was, I had the wrong stitch count. Closely exam the knitting - in the last row of clovers I managed to make a 4 leaf clover. I'd leave it and figure something else out if I had done it at the top of the clover so it REALLY looked like a lucky clover. Unfortunately, I put it on the bottom row so there were three leaves on the bottom. ARGH! I ripped down to that row again, finally managed to get all the stitches back on the needles correctly. Such is knitting. I finished up the back and started one of the fronts last night.
Last night I started the final piece of Mariah:
Blast it! Another mistake!! Can you spot it? Let's take a closer look:
I forgot to keep the edge stitches in garter stitch on the right front. NOOOOOOOO!!! OK. I did most of that front in one long evening at SNB, so I could just rip it all up and re-knit it. I'm so sick of these projects, though. I'm having problems with my mantra - it's the proces... it's the process... I could knit a little strip in garter stitch and sew it on. I could also rip out the left front and do an applied i-cord to both edges. The big problem is that I'm supposed to continue this up to the edge of the hood. So, I'll have to mull this for a couple of days before I bite the bullet. What would y'all do?
Non-Knitting Rant
Since I've got my rant on, I'm going to keep going. Who says PBS is a liberal network? Sunday morning while I'm making brunch I turn on PBS and it's some Wall Street Journal show. It's a panel of 4 members of the editorial board of the WSJ. One of the issues they're talking about is the pharmacist rights issue that I'm very interested in, so I was curious what they'd say and kept watching. What a joke this show is. First they talked about something else, which I can't for the life of me remember, but of course they all agreed. Duh! The editors of the WSJ are all going to take a conservative viewpoint on any issue. When you have every guest providing EXACTLY the same point of view, how helpful or informative is that? Why not just have one editor? Then they get to the pharmacist topic and I think, "if these guys are truly conservative, they won't like the religious right dictating access to healthcare". No. All of them agreed that pharmacists should be able to determine what meds they dispense. This despite an actual balanced lead in story showing patients who were unable to get birth control or Plan B because there is only one pharmacist in town and a physician talking about how there's only a short period during which Plan B is effective. One of the editors actually used a restaurant analogy - if you don't like one restaurant you don't have to go there, so if you don't like one pharmacy, you can choose another. WHAT? If this guy really can't see a difference between medical care and french fries, I fear for the analytical future of the WSJ. You do not see a show on Fox News featuring all members of Air America Radio, so I don't want to hear anyone comparing Fox News to PBS ever again.
rdladd@arnan.com
