Knitting, Botany, Mycology, Nature, Adventure, and Life... in no particular order.
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How to Fail at Going for a Run
How to fail at going for a run (in my case while training for a 1/2 marathon)
- Get up psyched to run
- Plot out the perfect running course including a new fun route, new scenery and a new distance you can’t wait to achieve
- Get your gear on and go!
- Run at an easy pace to not tire yourself out on the new route and longer distance, no need to be too tired with a mile to go
- Get to just past mile 2, the Mt. Auburn Cemetery, and realize the next 2 miles of your route, though the shade and hills of the cemetery roads, is not allowed. Curse to yourself but carry on because THIS is your route and the cemetery seems quiet.
- Go a little bit further and start to question whether you are still on the right route. Also, walk. Not because you are tired (because that is ok), not because you are sore (because that is ok), not to catch your breath (also ok) but because there are too many people around for you to feel comfortable breaking clearly posted rules.
- Go a bit further, realize you are totally on the wrong set of paths because the Mt. Auburn Cemetery is HUGE with more trails than you had on your original map and that there are too many people out for you to feel comfortable running.
- Walk back to the entrance as directly as you can, muttering and cursing yourself under your breath for ruining your long training run because you only have a bout 5 weeks to work up to 13 miles.
- Jog home the same way you came, continuing to mutter and curse.
On the plus side, I did still go for a jog and can do a longer run tomorrow. Also, it let me realize I didn’t have enough of a food and liquid base to really actually do a full long run.
So remember, No Jogging, No Picnicking, No Biking, No Rollerblading or any other thing that could be viewed as disrespectful in the Mt. Auburn Cemetery. Also, bring a map.
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Fixing Pro
So it turns out I am becoming a bit of a pro at fixing mistakes in cables when I am knitting. Not the kind of pro that can actually figure out how to gran that dropped stitch and weave it back up through the complicated maneuvers, but the kind that can drop back a whole section just to grab that dropped stitch.
That’s right, I have to keep relearning my lesson about working on the afghan when at all tired. Everything seems to be cruising along fine when all of a sudden I get to a point and say, why am I 1 stitch short or why is there a stitch dangling there?
It’s a bit frustrating overall since I would rather be making continuous forward progress than this everything forward, drop the middle back, bring the middle back to where everything else is, go forward with everything a little bit more, drop back the middle… etc.
At least in this heat it gives me an excuse to go out to my favorite coffee shops to drink cold beverages and sit in the ac.
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Can’t Believe It Worked!
So back a few posts ago I showed how I had messed up on the blanket I am knitting for a couple friends who got married. I had missed a cable and was fraught on what to do. I decided to follow the good advice and instructions by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee on her Yarn Harlot blog. I quickly discovered that I had to drop back more than the 5 offending stitches but the whole center panel! *Gasp of terror!*
So, I dropped and managed to pick up all the correct stitches. (I did some of this on the commuter rail where a lovely Irish gentleman that works for the New England Aquarium commented on how beautiful my work was and that it must be hard to do in dark colors compared to his sister that has won awards at home but usually knits in white.) So this is what I ended up with:
Deep breath looking at all those dropped rows
However, once I finally had all the stitches picked up from the same correct row, and once I figured out which row I was on, it really wasn’t so bad. I knit it back up over a couple of sittings so as not to get too tired and make another mistake. (Oh the horror!) and finally made it back to where I started on Saturday night while playing a role playing game with some friends that cutie is running. (Insert nerd/geek jokes at will.) I am pretty sure this again makes me my own superhero. (FYI that superhero is always either early or 80’s female empowerment Wonder Woman)
And now I’ve continued along, good as new, and have even now added the 4th ball of yarn. I think it looks pretty darn good, and I may have lost 2 weeks but I probably didn’t loose reknitting about 2400 stitches! At this point it would be fair to say I have knit about 18,200 if you don’t include mistake fixing! Whoa!
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Big trouble in cable city
So I’m working on knitting a present for a couple of friends of mine who got married. (Technically I have the whole first year so who cares if I cast on after the wedding!) It’s a mod of a complicated Starmore sweater into a lovely afghan. A few cables, a bit of simple lace, and viola!
So the thing about cables is that though they are simple in theory, there are some problems that can arrise, especially if one is lazy and does not actually use someting to underline their working row on all the charts.
Here is the panel in question:
Can you see the problem? How about now?
So this is what it is supposed to look like:
and this is what I have:
and if you look back to the first picture you might notice I have knit quite a bit since then. A whole additional repeat from where that mistake is. About 23 rows. 23 ROWS! And now I see that I have 3 options:
- Leave it, say that hand knit things have mistakes, and never look back!
- Drop back just those 5 stitches and see if I can figure out how to fix it and reknit everything along the way with just the cable needle, crochet hook, and my wits.
- Frog back 23 rows and fix the mistake and then reknit 23 rows.
As I see it 1 is straight out. I refuse to succumb to my own stupidity and laziness at forgetting a cable cross. Number 2 is terrifying and yet if it works is the least amount of work. I just haven’t yet figured out how exactly it would work, though I can usually figure out how to grab stitches as knits and purls, not usually 5 in a row with cables. The final option will work if the second option fails. (So long as I don’t drop other things along the way. I am suddenly considering lifelines for every pattern repeat.) However the idea of reknitting that many rows is inconceivable very hard. The backside rows speed along, but the front-side rows, when I am in a good rhythm and everything is moving perfectly probably take me no less than 10 minutes, which means if I was only doing front rows perfectly then it would take me about 2 hours of perfect knitting to redo all that work.
I think morning is a better time to tackle this, perhaps even afternoon after coffee and a lot of thinking. I may even have to phone a friend for some help, if only moral support! (Chocolate and wine may be on hand for the post results in case of both good or bad. Or beer, beer alyways helps… right? Maybe I should have one of those now.)
