Thursday, August 30, 2007

Lessons learned

I have learned a some lessons over the years, and even a few this week. Good lessons, bad lessons, funny lessons, duh-I-am-an-idiot lessons....they all have their value.


One silly lesson I learned lately is that if you like to knit with fuzzy yarn, as in a laceweight mohair blend, DO NOT buy a red couch. The project might be beautiful, lacey, yummy....


You might be in love with it. But then, you look where you were sitting, your inner clean self gasps in horror, you question your ability to stay sane when you are only 1/3 of the way through this project, because you see....

THIS! All over the couch. I see many hours of lint brushing in my future. I will press on, I will finish the shawl, I will get over the fact that my couch is going to look like do-do in the process. Ah well, that is a small enough price to pay for a beautiful knitted object, no?

Another lesson, gauge. You know where this is going don't you? This is my I-am-an-idiot lesson. I started a cardi for my daughter. It was looking so cute. It was looking small. It was a raglan. I could just keep increasing right? Um, no.


My daughter does not have a neck the size of a doll!!! Rip! Stupid, stupid, stupid. Soooo, now I have started over with my yarn doubled and it is looking much much better. Yay!


I should have this done sometime today, so she can wear it to school. My girls are obsessed with tank tops. They have MANY cute tank tops. They attend a school with a dress code that forbids anything sleeveless. We figured she could put this little cardi over them and stretch her wardrobe well into fall, saving me mucho bucks. Woo hoo!

A lesson on time management. Well frankly, lately I suck at it. This week has been the back to school transition week. This kids have a short week due to the holiday on Monday. It is good to have them back in school, but my busyness has not really improved much so far. Don't you think that there are just so many wonderful things to use our time on? Knitting, spinning, blogging, ravelry......I think I need about 2 more hours in my day. Speaking of ravelry, at first I thought I would never use it, now it usually wins out over blogging time. How do you all decide what to give your time to?

I may have learned a hard friendship lesson this week too. It is very disheartening to find that people you thought cared about you really might not. I'm sitting back and waiting to see what happens with this situation. Sad, just sad. I either need a hug or a fiber fix.

5 comments:

Opal said...

I feel for you regarding the lint. I have a white cat that loves my black chair. If I don't watch out, I'll soon have a very fuzzy white and black chair. *ew*

As for friends, I'm here if you need me. Only an email away. It's a lot cheaper then a fiber fix. ;-) *hugs*

Anonymous said...

Oh my - lessons... I usually don't like the process but, almost always, they give me something I didn't have before.

Your daughter's little raglan looks lovely :) Can't beat that top-down construction!

Anonymous said...

I need to knit my daughters some cute raglan cardis too!

aija said...

((hug))

(though, I'm sure you deserve the fiber fix ;))

Anonymous said...

I had to laugh at the lint, hope you don't mind. I once knit a project from some South American yarn on a cone that I was just knitting straight up from the cone. I suddenly realized I had a stencil of bright red around the base of the cone, and powdery red across my couch. That's right. Loose dye thrown in on top of the yarn, to what, enhance the effect? I never did figure that out. But at least it vacuumed right back out of there. Lesson learned: always hank and wash that particular brand (which is no longer imported into the US.)