Red Respite

I'm working on the red sweater and all is going well, but about midday yesterday I just had to put it down and leave it alone for a while. Tove is a crunchy wool and my fingers were getting really sensitive to it. Time for an antidote.

I picked up another of the ongoing knits, the green Topsy Turvy Mobius. The yarn is Handmaiden's Mini Maiden, a more than adequate antidote to crunchy. The wool silk blend feels like butter.

The project had gone past the ongoing stage and was back to the ripped right off the needles stage. There are some errors you can't fix and one of them is being 8 stitches out in a patterned project.

I did not look forward to beginning again. Casting on is never my favourite part. It took a couple of hours to get 216 stitches and only 216 stitches on to the needles. Normally you can pop an extra stitch off the needles but here, there is no grace. You need to be right the first time. 225,210, 228, 193. It went on for a while.

OK, there is a little bit of grace. You can work a stitch or two as a knit two together but by and large, you have to be right on. In the end I had 2 stitches to clear up, but I did start knitting.

I knew from the first time I saw this pattern, it was going to be a nice pattern to knit. It has all the parts I like. It has a pattern that once established, is easy enough to keep in your head and yet, you cant zone out as if it is garter stitch.

With a pattern like this, you have to be there every 8 stitches. I can do 8 stitches. I can do 8 stitches, just not 2. (I do not understand why 2 is so hard) And every 8 rows, you switch the pattern just enough to keep yourself from starting to get too confident, too comfortable.

Once established this pattern does that thing I like most about lace It finds its rhythm and flows right off your needles. It took very little time to be half way through the first repeat.

This is going to knit up fast.

I hope this antidote to red doesn't interfere too much with the sweater. The red sweater is needed. This pattern, this yarn? It is just wanted but wanted a whole lot.