Frogging is such sweet sorrow

Thank you for the sympathy on my gauge tragedy. I’m in the process of frogging Manon, and it isn’t easy to frog a Norah Gaughan design, let me tell you. I want the yarn for (possibly) Honey from the new Kim Hargreaves book, so it needs to get a nice bath. Last night I sat with Marc and watched a few episodes of “How I met your mother” while I worked on Tuscany. Tuscany is a little frustrating because you are increasing every row, resulting in a scarf with very long rows quickly, but not much length to the shawl. I’m still committed to finishing though – my shawl love shows no signs of diminishing anytime soon! Besides, I think it will be nice to have a shawl that’s long enough to tie easily.

All of the Knitting Daily galleries for summer are up, resulting in me deciding to make the hoodie after all – I can’t help it, it looks cute on every single person in the gallery! I think I will use Cashcotton, as really it isn’t too expensive for my size. I have a complicated relationship with fine gauge knits. One one hand, my fine gauge knits are some of my favorites, because they are so light and easy to wear, and I think they look more polished than chunkier things. One the other hand, I will not be winning any awards for patience any time soon, so it’s hard for me to contemplate anything knit in 4-ply yarn. I have 4 or 5 knits like that in my queue already, so I decided to get started with one.

This is the tuxedo tank from IK Summer 07. Yarn is Berroco Naturlin in Cinnamon. You may recall that I tried to start this one before but had gauge woes. This time my gauge is fine, mostly because I scrapped the crochet cast on. I don’t think it will roll that much, being mostly linen, and if it does I’ll just crochet around the bottom. I hate doing crochet to start anything because it seems to take forever, so I avoid it whenever possible, and in this case it was making the bottom flare a lot more than I wanted.

After adding the Apres Surf hoodie to the queue I realized I now have 3 of Connie’s designs in my list. I have yarn for the diamond lace tank from the spring IK, and it will come up soon in my queue – I’m just waiting for the weather to be a little warmer. I have been on a mission to find yarn for the printed silk cardigan, but so far I have been thwarted. Last night I swatched three different yarns, hoping that one would work. I have a photo, but it’s just sad… none of them were right. I’m about to break down and buy the Pima Silk that a few people on Ravelry used, as all my subs seem to not be working, and I really want to knit this sweater! I have this weird thing where I don’t like to use the same sub as someone else because I don’t want it to seem like I’m copying their sweater, but never mind that now – I give up! I have swatched that diamond pattern at least 10 times, and I can admit defeat. Nothing in my stash will work, I will have to actually buy yarn (oh what tragedy, right?)

Marc has had a cold all week, and I seem to have caught it from him (it was inevitable.) I’m sitting here obsessively eating zinc lozenges (I don’t know if they shorten a cold, but they do seem to keep it out of my throat, which is usually my goal.) Thursday is one of my days off, and usually we eat dinner out somewhere (to avoid the weekend crowds) and go to the library afterwards.

I think this will be the week I try to learn to read and knit at the same time – the tuxedo tank will be adorable I think, but man that’s a lot of small gauge stockinette! I finished two books this week, which is a little under my average – I can usually do three, but I had a hard time with one of them. First I read The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, which I really enjoyed. I love books which are set in an alternate version of our own world – it’s fun to pick out the differences. I also love anything involving time travel, so this was a great book for me! I highly recommend it for classic literature buffs, as it takes place in a world where the complete works of Shakespeare are required in every motel nightstand along with the Gideon bible, and the characters attend a performance of Richard III that brings to mind the Rocky Horror Picture Show . I’m looking forward to reading more of the series.

I also read I’m a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson. I’ve read several of his travel books and really enjoyed them, but I found this book, a collection of essays written for a British audience about returning to America after 20 years abroad, to be a bit of a slog. It takes me forever to read books without an overall plot because I have no motivation to move to the next chapter.  He also came across as a bit more curmudgeonly than in his other books (he is cranky in his other books, but hilariously so) Not recommended, but I would highly recommend A Walk in the Woods by the same author.  It’s the story of his walk on the Appalachian trail, and it’s much better than that description makes it sound.