Death to Smooshy

The following blog post contains foul language. Reader discretion is advised.

I am cursed. There is no other explanation for this situation. Fucking cursed.

I have finished several projects recently, and I am itching to cast on my entrelac socks. I have the yarn already- two skeins of Dream in Colour "Smooshy", one teal and one sort of coral-y, watermelony red. They are very large skeins, so I set myself up in front of the TV with my ball winder and swift, carefully placed the red skein on the swift, and began to wind.

Snag. Fuck.

I had made maybe three revolutions when the yarn stuck, a rogue piece of yarn looped around the (supposedly) free end. No big deal-

Wind the yarn off the ball winder.

Slip the end of the yarn through the offending loop.

Re-wind the yarn onto the ball winder.

Turn, turn, turn. Snag. FUCK!

Repeat a few more times, adjusting the yarn on the swift, turning the other direction, removing the whole skein and replacing it upside down.

Say fuck a few more times (this was surprisingly unhelpful).

Decide to take drastic measures, and start winding off by hand. I had a good sized ball going by the time things had worked themselves out, so I wound it back onto the ball winder. Turn, turn, turn.

I'm going along at a good clip, with only a few minor snags, but nothing that requires actually removing the ball again. Turn, turn, turn.

The yarn-winding gods will only let me be happy for so long, though. Turn, turn, whomp! Something hits me in the forehead, hard enough that it takes me a few moments to compose myself and figure out what the fuck that was about.

The tube dealie (yes, that's the official term, fuck off) on the centre of the winder had come loose, and the fucking thing flew right up and clocked me. To add insult to injury, this has also resulted in a fair bit more tangling. This isn't funny.

I spent the better part of 5 hours untangling this yarn (while watching TV, taking computer breaks, and of course eating and drinking) and I am still not done. I am not happy with this yarn, especially since this is one time I know that the tangling is not my fault.

Fuck once more, for good measure.

Update: I have now officially finished untangling the fucking yarn. I haven't forgiven it yet.

Not for lack of knitting...

This blog has been suspiciously empty. We spent a week at our cottage in Bala (the cranberry capital of Ontario, FYI). The ridiculously fresh air seems to have an odd effect on me. Quite frankly, it puts me to sleep- honestly, I just could not get enough sleep. Luckily, the cottage is the one place that I can pretty much lay down anywhere, anytime and take a nap (assuming the kids are with my husband- which they tend to be because he's much more fun on vacation than sleepy mum).

When I wasn't napping, but hadn't risen out of my fog enough to play in the river, I was knitting. I finished my Malabrigo Hourglass sweater- just in time for summer (grrrr). But it is absolutely glorious. I even got to wear it for a whole evening because it does occasionally get cold up there.



This photo was taken pre-blocking, in the dim cottage bathroom. It was the best I could do at the time.

Post blocking, on the bed-



hmm, still looks a little lumpy and wrinkly. I blame the futon.

I also finished my first Baby Surprise Jacket. I used Manos Cotton Stria, in aqua and tangerine. I started out with one skein of each, but at about this point:



I started to worry that maybe there wouldn't be quite enough yarn to finish. My LYS was out- they only had 2 skeins of purple, which I decided I could not work in to this already- erm- eclectic colour scheme. A two-day stopover in TO gave me the opportunity to hit up Romni- even there, I could only find one skein of the tangerine, and it seemed significantly duller than my original skein.

I carried on, hoping that the striping pattern would hide the irregularity. What do you think?



I have to admit that at this point in the sweater, I was more concerned about the fact that I could not for the life of me see how this was going to become a sweater. I worried that EZ knew something I didn't about sewing up seams, or that I had completely misread the pattern, or otherwise entirely fucked this pattern up. Ah, me of little faith...