Bad Things Come in Threes

Knitting is not going my way lately. I hate to confess it, but I've been a little whiny about it. I've drooped around as if I had nothing to knit. Just because I can't get the join to come out how I want it to on the Malabrigo Squash Blanket doesn't mean I can't knit anything else. Jess left a comment (hey, Jess!) with a suggestion. I'll give it a shot when I'm less disgusted by the whole thing.

I decided to knit on the beaded scarf. I changed my mind about the color beads I want to use -- the clear amber will be more sparkly and I want sparkly for this -- and stripped the black ones off. Except in a strange contradiction to the laws of physics, matter would appear to have been destroyed, i.e., my beading needle has evaporated. Not a huge set-back, except the Michael's I went to was sold out of long beading needles, and so I can't string the new color and thus can't knit the scarf. Still, is that any reason to mope? Of course not. Well, maybe a little.

I regrouped. Perhaps, I thought, my error was in switching from knitting for others to knitting frivolously. I do want to gift another afghan. I arbitrarily and on the spur of the moment decided the ideal time for said gifting would be when the intended recipients get back from Colorado at the end of the month. This necessitated a pattern and yarn that would do the work for me. I thought to kill two birds with one stone and chose another mitered square afghan, this one written slightly differently than the one I've been fighting, in hopes that it would clear out whatever road-block I've developed.

Then I let myself be seduced by Lorna's Laces again. This never goes well. I finished the first square and thought I was on to something really good. A third of the way through the second square I realized two things. One - this pattern calls for all the decreases to slant in the same direction, joining them horizontally. The Squash Blanket has the squares oriented in different directions and they're joined vertically. I'm knitting apples and oranges here, aren't I? An orange you can peel without a knife; try that with an apple. So, it won't help me past that barrier.

Almost more annoying is how wrong I was about the yarn. For one thing, the more I knit, the louder the yarn gets. As the Light of My Life put it, the pattern is trying too hard for the yarn. I had hoped the continual decreases in a mitered square would keep the yarn from pooling, which it sort of did.

Just not enough.

I am trying to address all these issues. I've ordered yarn and chosen a different pattern for the afghan. I've ordered four beading needles from Beadaholic. I plan to thread them through painfully bright strips of paper, possibly even day-glo, so I never lose one again. And I am coming to terms with the fact that the Squash Blanket may have to be frogged, too. I'll try Jess's idea, possibly twisting the stitch on the return row to tightened it up, but if that doesn't pan out? It can just join the other two projects.

And then that's three and I'm out of the woods. Right?