Hey Presto

I have some superstitions. They're a little idiosyncratic. None of the Friday the 13th stuff --Clare was born on Friday the 13th, on a full moon no less. No issues with black cats -- I had one and may again, someday. Nonetheless, I hold my particular old wives tales dear. I was especially disconcerted this morning, therefore, when two of my dearest, most reliable irrational beliefs failed me at the same time.

I am firmly convinced that once I've blogged about the multiple ways I screw up any given knitting project, I am supposed to be safe, if not from any more screw-ups, at least from any new ones. I am equally sure that if I mark the right side of the knitting with a stitch marker, I will be able to keep straight what I'm supposed to be doing on which side. While watching back-to-back episodes of Monk with John this morning may have had something to do with these bits of personal dogma bailing on me, I'm not sure I forgive them.

There are too many ends here. That would be because I decreased on both sides, right at the point where the pattern calls for breaking the yarn and sliding the work around the circulars, effectively knitting the right side twice. I was two rows short of where I was supposed to be. I, of course, did not discover this until after I had broken the yarn.


As a result I spent a chunk of my time un-knitting, re-knitting, spit-splicing and finally recovering lost ground.

All of which led me to wonder why I was bothering. Ignoring the fact that anyone who's still reading this is desperately wishing I had never learned to knit (or at least never read Kay's post), shouldn't any sane person whose convictions have been so rudely confuted take it as a sign to stop the project already? What is it that keeps me so engaged? Why do I want to keep telling you all about it in such excruciating detail?

Before I could knit my way in to another lapse, I went off to research (I can't help myself; I went to a Really Good College). I knew I had read something in the past year that explained it. I found it in the latest Yarn Harlot book (Yes, that one. By the way, did you know it's out on CD?), and it validates what I thought when I started this whole knitting adventure (she just says it so much better than I do). It's because knitting is magic and I find the mitered squares to be particularly so. They start as a straight line and (do you realise this people?) bend in on themselves. Every row is different. They're multi-colored and multi-textured and have that pattern of decreases down the middle. Blocking them turns them from comical to elegant.

Under the circumstances, I think superstition is the only valid way to deal with them. Well, that and incantation.