Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits....

I've been really into Pulp lately, mostly because of that song as well as "Common People." They sort of capture my feeling very, very broke and not fitting in and all that. Life has been a bit rough the last few weeks. Very briefly: concussion, upset stomach, another sty, ridiculous heating bill, bill from ER that insurance won't pay, dent in my car from backing into a snow (ice?) drift in my driveway and just not knowing what the future holds. I worry about the cat who eats random fuzz and stuff off the rug. I worry about DB who has not has good news yet about graduate school. Plus, work has been crazy and now two days in a row I haven't had a lunch. I need food. I get cranky without food. Oh, and I had two termination sessions which are always a bit hard.

Oh, mistakes! I've been working on the Cafe au Lait mitts. I've not been too happy with them and a few repeats into the lace pattern, I put them down for nearly a week. Usually I stick with patterns (like the forever and ever hat) and don't let them hibernate. I don't like leaving things undone. I haven't been working on the mitts, because I kept looking at the lace part I've knit, and something didn't look quite right. But, I re-read the pattern and kept thinking, well, I've been doing everything right so far as I can tell!


Then I saw this thread [Ravelry link] on the Ravelry forums. Curious, I read it. Oh. I see now....

Then I said a few four-letter-words to myself. Decided I didn't want to rip back to just the start of the lace, but all the way back. Like completely frog and start over. It felt cleaner that way. I'm still saying some four-letter-words.

So, I had been reading YO, K1 as do the yarn over thing and knit that stitch, then knit another. I learned YO from the Vogue Knitting book which is super clearly illustrated and whatnot. But apparently not clear enough for me. In retrospect, I was trying to figure out why the pattern stressed dividing the stitches into 6 stitch portions when, the way I read it, each row was made up of 7 stitch repeats.

Blah. Well, I guess that's a better word than the others. And I'm very grateful to Ravelry for enlightening me where I didn't know I needed it! I am very much a hands-on learner. And now, maybe I will better enjoy knitting these mitts on the start over. I have to say - the rib pattern on these came out very satisfyingly. I hope that now that I know how to do a proper yarn over, the lace section will be satisfying as well.

The mitts are frogged back to a simple skein of yarn (yummy yarn, by the way) and I'm not going to begin them tonight. It's been a rough week (month, year...). Dear DB has suggested a glass of wine and one of my favorite games, Scrabble. Knowing it's his least favorite game, this warms my heart to no end so I'm off to kick some DB butt.