Monday, April 9, 2007

Frustration!

Hubby, son, and I headed out of town this past weekend for Easter... Oh, yes, Happy Easter (belated - though it's never too late to celebrate His resurrection!)! Here's a happy Easter pic, courtesy of my son and his excitement in learning that plastic Easter eggs can hold amazingly yummy treats, especially when they are at Gam's house.

My thoughts as I'm heading out the door, 15 month-old son in tow... "This will be such a nice weekend to work on my knitting... all the in-laws will be around to help watch the big boy, and I'll be able to kick back and enjoy myself...." Oh, how dreams can be smashed - and in so many different ways!

The first hint I had that things would be going terribly wrong: I am literally walking out the door with my son on one arm, 23 bags on the other, and I hear, "clink!" as I am heading down my porch steps. Since I cannot yet physically bend down and pick up anything with a squirming child in my arms, I sighed and made a mental note. No note needed. After strapping the still-squirming child into his carseat, I headed back to lock up the house (another thing I cannot yet physically do in the same circumstances). There, on my front porch, was a knitting needle, glistening in the sun. Sigh... I picked it up and trotted back to the car, where I was going to lay the needle nicely next to the headband project I had high hopes of finishing this weekend.... Oh, the horror to find out it was not the non-working needle that just slipped out of my bag - it was the working needle that was supposed to be still on my project!!! Or rather, on which my project was still supposed to be!!! Foreshadowing....

The other frustrations started rolling in... who do children talk to about behaving in public? Make that misbehaving in public. My normally jolly and very easy-going son apparently has been talking to someone who told him how much fun it was to watch mom and dad squirm when he goes crazy in public. Even more so in front of extended family.

I did get to knit... though my heart wasn't really into it. It's hard to get engrossed in a project when every other row you have to put the needle down and run after a child. It's also hard when said child runs up and grabs your knitting project with his death-like grip and says "MINE!" It's hard to wrestle it back out of his clutches, too.

So here's the progress I was able to make on my headband. I've modified it quite a bit from the original - instead of one solid loop, I started decreasing and ended the first end in an I-cord so I can tie it together instead of just slipping it on. However, I have learned the importance of writing down your mods as you make them, because now I'm trying to recreate what I did for the other end. I'm treating this as a trial/sample piece - I know I'll be wearing it, but it's not a pretty thing at this point. I'm finishing the 2nd end from the cast-on row, so it's not pretty at all.

Plus, this Lion Brand Micro-Spun! Grrr! See previous post, and comments about the yarn. I'm in agreement with Eileen - I like the finished fabric it makes (it's so soft!), but I won't be working with this again. I've got snags galore (see pic), and it's just so frustrating! Too bad I bought several skeins....

Onto another topic - my KAL! Hopefully everyone doing the KAL will have their yarn soon, and we can begin. I also just bought a wireless printer server so I can beam the pattern to my printer and get my hands on some actual paper. I like to see patterns online, but when it comes time to work one, I need it in front of me all the time. Plus, I'm sure I'm going to find out something rather important that I need to write on it - like if I need to modify it at all.


It? So, what is IT? Here's the Mason Dixon Buttonhole Bag I'm doing with some moms from my mom's group, RichmondMommies.com. And here are the colors I'm knitting it in. I'm kind of keeping to the colors in the picture of the pattern, but I think I'm going to throw some stripes in for good measure. I love the richness of the peacock blue, and of course, and anything green... I love love love green!

Wow - That's a lot of pics for one little post. Now I'm off to figure out dinner!

2 comments:

Kellie said...

Love the colors for your bag :) You like blue! Sorry about the frustration, I know that had to stink. Adorable picture of the little man though!!!!!!! Happy Easter to you :) Can't wait to see how your bag knits up.

DustBunniesCanWait said...

Repeat after me ... "They are not problems, they are design features". You'll be surprised how little people notice problems like that (especially when you are wearing them)

BTW, love the colors for your bag.