Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Not Having Fun

And Knitting and Crocheting are supposed to be fun. And relaxing. But they weren't either last night because the cuff wasn't working out.
Actually, while I was trying to beat the pattern into submission, Hubby was being very cranky at the Yankees for losing again. So I'm not sure whether it was my own annoyance I was feeling or I was getting the tension off of him.
To make matters worse, when he was letting the game spool in the DVR so he could fast forward through commercials he switched over to playing his Medal of Honor video game. Which was on a really tough mission so he kept dying. So both his activities were making him cranky. sigh.
It was all so annoying I considered fleeing the living room, but I didn't. Because I am a supportive wife.

Stupid Lace
The portion of the pattern I chose at the big pineapple was just not fitting gracefully into the 48 sts I had available. I couldn't balance it/space the touch points evenly.
I even got out paper and attempted to make a chart. Much scribbling and erasing was going on while Hubby was wishing someone would pay him millions of dollars not to do his job properly. And Samson decided to snuggle, but he didn't want pets he just wanted to have his head on my paper. (See why I almost left?)
I ended up busting out the 365 Crochet Stitches Perpetual Calendar I received for Christmas. There were some stitches that had potential.
Then I took another look at the doily pattern. The smaller pineapples have a more flexible start. Through some careful counting on the existing doily I determined it would be possible to fit whole repeats onto my 48 sts properly.
Yipee.
And at that point it as late enough to legitimately start getting ready for bed, so I was able to flee the living room and still seem supportive.
Yipee, again.

Cuff Progress
The new plan was implemented on the train this morning.
I was able to fit 6 repeats of the base stitches, which should equate to 6 pineapples.
The next hurdle will be figuring out how to end it. I really like that fan bit at the end of the doily. I think it will be a better ending than trying to cut the pattern off in the middle.
However, I don't want to have to go through the big pineapples to get to it. That would be too much cuff. Currently I suspect that I can jump ahead to the beginning of the fan and drop it in where the big pineapples are supposed to come in.
But goodness knows I've been wrong before.
I'm making rapid progress, so I might even find out on the ride home tonight.

2 comments:

  1. I love to crochet a good pineapple pattern, especially doilies. I bought a great book not to long ago that had 100 or so doilies and, after looking at it, realized that I have a lot more to learn about doing pineapples! I did make about five of the doilies in the book, before switching over to knitting and socks and, well, you know where it goes from there!

    The socks will come out great - you'll see.

    Daniele aka mscreate.typepad.com
    landapugs on ravelry

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  2. Thanks, Ann, for your suggestion of where to find pastel yarn. I am totally at my wits end.

    Hope your socks are coming along to your satisfaction!

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