The Temptation to Frog

So I've finished the shrug and just need to seam it. But I'm running into problems. I thought I was smart to anticipate that I'd want the 2x2 ribbing to line up for seaming, so I was sure to set it up so that 2 purls would end up next to 2 knits. But it doesn't work that way.

I was just now reading Donna Kooler's Encyclopedia of Knitting and she says to end one piece with 1 knit and it's seam-mate with 2 knit stitches, since you'll lose a stitch when seaming. Oooooooo, so that's why my seam looks so crappy, because I'm losing a stitch. So, it's just a seam, right? Only the seams on this shrug come across your bust, so they are front and center. Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!

Kooler suggests one way of avoiding having to seam the ribbing is do a provisional cast on, knit the body and seam it and then remove the provisional cast on and pick up the stitches on a circular needle and knit the ribbing in the round (no seaming). Brilliant, but a little late for me. Though I am pondering ripping back the bottom ribbing and seeing if I can cut the initial ribbing to remove it (someone did that on ravelry with another garment, so it's possible). I guess I would cut the yarn in the last row of ribbing so I have enough yarn to weave in so the body doesn't unravel.

I could do that, but then I think, well, the body of the garment isn't all that great, so should I just frog the whole thing? I've made plenty of mistakes. I've made peace with the design on back, that doesn't bother me anymore. But, I only knit 14 1/2 inches for the body, most people did at least 18 and I now know why, it just doesn't look right shorter. I could rip back the last ribbing section, knit the body longer and re-do the ribbing, making sure I have a column of 1 knit to line up with 2 knits for better seaming, but that's a lot of work for something I don't really like. Even if it's perfect, I don't really like it. It's shapeless and sort of clumsy. I always wondered why everyone pins it in the middle. Well, it doesn't look good if it's not pinned and/or it feels like it will slide off the shoulders.

I've learned a lot making this - I'm not even sad to frog it because I got so much out of it. Or, maybe I'll wear it a little, since it's so cold and I can always frog it in the summer. Or maybe I should just block it, see what that does and just suck it up. The yarn wasn't that expensive and I'm sick of being stuck in a cycle of knitting and ripping. I re-did the left seam, so it no longer puckers like in the picture. I did some funky chain stitching and then seaming. Now I think the left seam looks better than the right, so maybe I'll re-do that seam, block it and be done.

Onward, I've got a Cherie Amour to ruin!

Adventures in Arithmetic

This is a post I wrote for the community blog, Life Without School. It tells about our approach to math. I notice that one link in the post is dead, but I will update it here.

The excerpt from my post with the working link:

I also found a great article in Book Links, a publication by the American Library Association, that lists and summarizes a number of books that help preschoolers through elementary aged kids learn about math.

Shrug Update

for all of you out there with baited breath for me to finish this thing, I feel I should tell you I don't think it's going to look like the mock-up I did in my earlier post. Working up the diagram, the knit stitches sort of frame the purls - but it doesn't look like this working down and I'm not sure how to fix it, or whether it can be fixed. I've been knitting and ripping, knitting and ripping and I'm tired of it, I'm just knitting through. It will be interesting to see how it turns out -- and I'm really glad it will be on my back!


Note: the safety pin marks where I stopped knitting up the pattern chart and started working down. You can see that the older yarn is in touch with it's angoraness, getting a little fuzzy, while the newer part has yet to fuzz.




I think I'm going to rip it back (yet again) to the point of reversal (the safety pin) and just knit it following the pattern. That will be fine, this reversal just didn't work out.

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Learning from Testing

This is a post I wrote for the community blog, Life Without School.

I love that homeschooling allows my children the opportunity to learn about testing without having testing overshadow actual learning.

Redemption Shrug

(imagine hearing a version of Bob Marley's Redemption Song while reading this)

I've worked through the stages of grief with this shrug - this is how it went:

Step 1 - Denial. I thought it would simply take a number of rows before I could discern the vinnland pattern.

Step 2 - Anger. Why didn't I get any help? I looked in knitting instruction books for help and found nothing to tell me how to use the diagram properly. I can't do this by myself, as with so many others, hubris was my downfall.

Step 3 - Envy. I want it to look like kvp's shrug.

Step 4 - Depression. I made a mistake and it doesn't look right. I appreciate kitmf's comment that it was a design decision, but it wasn't. It was a mistake. I'm a failure and a very bad knitter. Lord only knows what I'm doing to my kids if I can't even knit a shrug properly.

Step 5 - Acceptance. This is MY shrug and it looks fine. I need to stop comparing myself to others and my hair is going to cover up half the back anyway.


And since I'm not a Buddhist, I can't stop at acceptance. No, I ascribe to the doctrine of the Christian Church, so there must be something more....

Step 6 - Redemption. This started out as a mistake, but I will own it. I will redeem the mistake and make it a design. Thus, I have decided to flip the chart. I've knit half of it going up, I'll knit the other half going down. There will be salvation in symmetry! I only wish it was a bit closer to Easter.

Why write this now, why not just do it and post the finished picture? Because if I flame out big time I want this to document the glimmer of hope, the spark of life I once had. Some will believe, others will demand proof (after all, I'm married to a man named Thomas).





P.S. Hi Tammi! I miss you!

The Shrug of My Torment

I'm trying to determine whether I'm an idiot, but I'm not sure I'm smart enough to know.

Some time ago, my friend pointed out the Circular Shrug thread on Craftster. After obsessing over it, reading the posts, and looking at the pictures, I decided I wanted to make one. I ordered the yarn, the nicest yarn I had yet purchased since I often get my acrylic-blend yarns at Michael's. Well, I found a closeout on WEBS of a pretty pink in Cascade Cloud 9 - half angora, half wool. It's really nice. Unfortunately, I was not able to get to this project because I started my spiral scarf knitting binge for Christmas gifts.


After getting on Ravelry and rediscovering shrugs, and ordering yarn for a similar pattern, I looked for my Cloud 9 and thought I'd start that. Following the pattern directions, I dutifully knit a gauge swatch -- only I'm lazy and I only did a few rows, enough to get a close enough estimate so I could calculate how many stitches to cast on. Okay, done, I got my CO number and I happily knit 5 inches of 2x2 ribbing (a technique which I suffered to learn on another shrug I made). Piece of cake. Only when it's time for me to start the pattern stitch of mock rib, it occurs to me I have never done that stitch, which means I did my gauge swatch in stockinette (I didn't keep the swatch, I unraveled it and used it in the shrug. Oh, that's why you keep the swatch). BUT, you need to do your swatch in your pattern stitch or frogs will start falling from the sky. Well, maybe not that bad, but goodness knows what happens when you go off pattern and I had already done that with said earlier shrug.

The problem is I don't want to do boring old stockinette stitch for the body of the shrug. So I start searching Vogue Knitting's Stitchionary, Vol. 1 (on loan from the library) in an attempt to find something that looks interesting but not too far from st st. But, the stitches I find interesting and yet simple enough require a certain number of stitches, which I don't have. So I can't switch to those. Then I find kvp's shrug on Ravelry. The body of her shrug was mostly st st with an interesting design up the back. Perfect, I'll do that! She provided a link for the pattern. The only wrinkle is I've never knit from a diagram, I've always followed a written pattern (e.g. P2, K1, YO, P2.....), I've never used the grid. This indicates I'm more aural than visual (if you've ever studied learning styles).

The thing is, I'm not sure how to read the grid. I refer to the VK Stitchionary, since the Anticraft noted the vinnland pattern was adapted from a pattern in there. Looking at the VK stitch, which is written out, not on a grid, it instructs you to purl every other row, so you are only working the pattern on odd rows. Made sense to me. I tried to find instruction on how to read patterns or grids in my other knitting books but couldn't find anything that told me how to read the grid, they just explained stuff I knew about reading patterns, gauge, stitches and abbreviations, and needle size, etc. I also figured that if you use the pattern stitch for every row, you'd have to reverse knits and purls and it would all be so complicated.

So I start to knit, using the pattern on my knit side and purling the entire row in between. I'm digging the grid, it's really fun. Only my pattern looks longer and less intricate than kvp's and she has about 6 repeats of the pattern and there is no way I'm going to get that.

Dawn come slowly to Camp Marjorie. Turns out I couldn't find instruction on reading a grid because it's called a CHART (as noted on the Anticraft, and on the chart I printed out and have been referring to constantly. Oooh - balance tips in favor of an idiocy determination). The written out instructions on the Anticraft didn't trigger a correction in my mind because that's written for knitting in the round, not back and forth, like I'm doing. Turns out, Debbie Stoller has already explained how to read a chart simply in her book, Stitch n' Bitch, which I own! Only I couldn't find it because I didn't realize that the grid is actually a CHART. Reading a chart is different than I would have assumed. I was correct that you need to reverse the stitches, but you're also reading right to left for some rows and reading left to right for others. I feel fairly confident I would have really screwed up if I tried to read the chart the correct way.

Oh well, my knitting presents yet another opportunity for me to practice a sort of Buddhist acceptance. Only I'm a Christian and I'm looking for forgiveness and while it's similar, it's not the same thing. Part of me wants the redemption promised by Christ by ripping back and re-knitting. I cannot move forward from this sin in a state of grace because that would mean changing to the correct pattern, which would look really weird - so "go out and sin no more" doesn't work in this case. I'm stucking repeating my sin and I'm not sure how forgiveness works if you keep doing the same sin intentionally, and I'm not Catholic so I can't pull the Robert Hanssen of confessing it and then continuing (something tells me he twisted doctrine on that one, but it's not my doctrine, so how would I know?) Part of me wants to accept that what I'm doing, though different than my plan, is fine. And my hair is long and is going to cover half of the pattern anyway, and it's on my back, so it's not even like I'll be seeing it in the mirror.

Maybe I'll feel better if I stop showing everyone the picture of kvp's shrug and telling them that is what I'm doing.