Stampede Misery Mystery Project

This May has been crappy.  Horrific knitting errors and constant medical misadventures with my family.   (We are all sick.  Again.  The littlest one is on antibiotics... good times.  NOT.)  I had hoped that May 31 would be "the reveal" where I would show you my mystery project and celebrate by knitting insanely simple and fun things this summer.  Alas- that was not in store.  Medical misadventures have the ability to sidetrack one and suck away the knitting time.  That's not to say there isn't progress, because there is, it's just not what I would have hoped.

This puppy is off the needles!  And OH I am so relieved it's over.  (BAH-BYE bobbins!)

The thing is, every time I get a little chill of happiness that I'm not knitting this project anymore, I'm reminded of this:

I'll just be in the corner weeping

Yes- that would be the definition of a "metric butt load" of ends to weave in.  This project is so faaaarrrrrr from finished still.  This week, the only thing I accomplished was weaving in the blue ends.  That was all.  There was that many that needed to done.  (I'll do a final snip and clean up the "bumps" once the blanket is blocked and things are tucked in nicely.)

There's still white, orange and green to do.  *sigh* I've decided a different reward system- and do all the colors at once and then knit some on the project- and so with blue out of the way, I'm going to knit 10 small things that get us closer to some kind of "reveal" on the mystery project.  (Is this even a mystery to anyone anymore?  Should I call it something else?  Stampede MISERY project?)

I'm so grateful tomorrow is June 1.  I need a new month.  A new clean slate where no one is sick and where everyone is reasonably happy and content.  I have a new goal.  Finish this blanket by June 20.  (Entry deadline)  This needs to be done.  I need to move on to fun and happy projects- not ones that are making me slowly hate my life.  (Perhaps I'm being a touch dramatic here... bear with me.)

So here we go.  Last day of May, and I'm convinced nothing else crappy can happen.  Only upward from here people!  Only upward!

Closer

One of the directions for the mystery blanket's pattern is to find a way to track 226 stitches because you have to track smaller stitch counts along the way and it will all get confusing if you don't track it.  Normally I wouldn't follow this kind of instruction, but this time, for whatever reason, I did.

The added bonus of keeping track of the blanket stitches this way is that you know exactly how many rows of stitches you have left.  There are 26 more rows to go.  TWENTY. SIX.  The end is near.  I have a very visual reminder that I will, in fact, finish this damn project.  (At least this portion of it.)

Here is what 200 rows of this project look like so far.  (Keen eyes will note I have recovered from the awful, AWFUL error and have moved on.)

I've decided to break down the end weaving in, so as to not die from the boredom, and reward myself by weaving in 3 ends- and knitting the next piece on the project.  Perhaps that will help the ends be less awful.

The other night I also had my knitting group to visit, and since the above project isn't exactly "travel friendly", I opted to catch myself back up on the May hat.  BEHOLD- a hat for MAY.

And that's about all that's happening here.  I'm hoping that 26 rows are going to go smoothly and problem free and I'm back here next week telling you it's OFF the needles.  We're so close people!  So CLOSE!  (Close enough that I'm dreaming about what I'm going to knit this summer... needs to be something easy, I'm going to need a break from this rat's nest!)

Begin Again

So... it turns out that a catastrophic knitting error wasn't even the worst of my problems last week.  If it could go wrong last week, it did.  Spectacularly.  I won't bore you on the details- but OMG, last week you sucked.  Knitting was the least of my concerns and priorities and up until yesterday did I really finish tinking back the errors and bringing myself to square one again.  I really hope I never have to do that again.

I've been quietly, calmly thinking to myself, as I pick up where I had to rip back to, "begin again".

Sometimes knitting can be a real jerk.  (Kind of like life.)  Sometimes it can make you mad, make you cry, frustrate the hell out of you and make you want to throw things.  (Also, kind of like life.)  Even if you set aside your knitting, in order to calm down, the problem is still waiting for you, haunting your other projects, remaining unfinished.  (Kind of like life.)  It's not until you sit down, work out the problem (and yes, it's painful and sucks) and "begin again" can you really move on.  (Kind of like... I think you probably get the analogy at this point.)

It sucks to gain some perspective from a really crappy error that was really un-enjoyable to fix.  But here we are.  Sometimes you just have to begin again and know going forward that you're going to be okay and that no matter how crappy it was, it can only get better from starting again.  You're bound to make other mistakes, but going slowly, gaining your confidence is a good way to get back into the game and pretty soon you have something beautiful and finished that you can be really proud of.  It will be worth going through the crap along the way.

I know it's weird to parelell knitting with life- but for, me, sometimes the greatest reminders of how to tackle a problem (stitch by stitch), or a reminder that it's worth going through pain for something amazing in the end is a good reminder for me personally.  This week I needed the reminder.

And wine.  I also needed A LOT of that too.  :-)

I begin again today.  This blanket can only improve and get better.  I've tackled the hard stuff and now I just need to look ahead to the finished project.  Hopefully that means still meeting my June 20 goal.  Stay tuned dear reader.... stay tuned.

..... To my "moms" in my knitting group that faithfully read this blog: I'm okay.  Really.  It was a tough week but everyone and everything is OK.  Don't worry!!!!!

Catastrophe

HEARTBREAK!  AGONY!  DEFEAT!  PAIN!  TEARS!  ANGER!  R A G E !!!!!!!!

Let's start at the beginning.

In the last week or so, I've kind of hit a wall on this project.  I'm tired of dealing with endless bobbins. I look at the number of ends to weave in and I just feel so UN-INSPIRED about the whole thing.  I just needed to finish.  I need to move on to the next steps and move on to a new project in general.

I didn't even want to knit last night.  I'm tired, I'm at the tail end of a cold and I'm mildly addicted to a new iphone game (Bookworm Heroes!) I'm playing with my sister and I thought "no, I'm going to just sit on the couch and not knit this thing tonight."  The only thing that motivated me to pull the needles out was that I was so close to the end of the final "extreme bobbin" color stage that I thought, "just finish that" and I can relax.  Plus the knitting getting significantly easier when it's just blue/green etc.  And so I  knit the final 5 rows of the color repeat.

Something had been bothering me all afternoon about the side orange item count.  I thought I recalled going to 21 stitches last time, not the 15 I was getting.  I have NO IDEA why I just ignored this concern and kept going.  I have no idea why it didn't click in with me that THIS WAS A MAJOR MAJOR PROBLEM.  But it didn't.  Not until I finished the final white color row that I realized that I should also be finishing the side orange rows... but I wasn't.  I was missing 4 rows there.

Then it hit me- in one foul, ugly, sickening, gut wrenching swoop.  I started the orange side things too late.  I need to rip out 18 rows of stitches.

(You can sort of see here that the top "orange blob" is slightly off kilter to the other orange blobs.)

I'll say it again.  I NEED to RIP OUT 18 ROWS OF COMPLICATED FAIRE ISLE COLORWORK.

Hang on- I just need to go sob in a corner again...

Normally, I am not one adverse to yanking the needle out and just pulling out the rows quickly to fix the issue.  I can't do that here.  Let me illustrate why:

BOBBINS.  F***ing BOBBINS.  I have to tink back each stitch, and twist and turn and rewind bobbins.  To pull out the needles would create such an epic rat's nest of yarns that I would further spiral into a depressive tunnel of shame and self loathing.

And so I begin to tink.  Quite franky I don't know where this leaves me.  I've told myself to go back, rip out to the start of the mistake and walk away for a day or two.  Knit a May hat, or pull out the stripey blanket, or something that doesn't make me want to sob uncontrollably.  But I'm un-motivated.  I'm full of loathing and anger now.  I worry walking away from this project means I won't ever walk back.  I'm not sure the million ends to weave in and bobbins to deal with are going to bring me back.

We are starting a home renno in June.  I had told myself that this blanket needed to be done before that started- as my brain will be too unorganized to do anything else.  It's going to take me at least a day if not more to tink these rows back.  (By the time I wind/untwist etc, it takes me as long to remove the row as it would have to knit it.)  I don't know if I can finish now.

I'm lost on this one.  I can feel myself giving up.  I'm going to fight the feeling but I'll be honest... I'm not sure what's going to happen.

Send me some knitting mojo?