Charles Dickens' Mr Micawber has been on my mind this week. He's the character in David Copperfield who says: "Annual income £20, annual expenditure £19 nineteen and six, result happiness; annual income £20, annual expenditure £20 nought and six, result misery". Apart from needing a basic knowledge of pre-decimal currency, how does this famous maxim apply to knitting? Well in some ways it's been a pretty dismal knitting week. Good conversations at my knitting group and with friends, the gift of a lovely Shetland Lace pattern from Simply Knitting magazine, and further e-mails from people who saw my letter in The Times. But as far as actual knitting goes, rather a frustrating time. My Arctic Lace scarf is begun and the pattern looks lovely as you can see but there's a mistake I need to attend to when I've finished updating here and to be honest I'm not looking forward to another stint of ripping out and picking up stitches. Hey ho. Then there's the shawl I started working on as a bit of light relief - it's the free gift with this year's Rowan membership (definitely worth having by the way, go to http://www.knitrowan.com/ for details). Just the thing for relaxing from lace, I thought, a cotton yarn on 5mm needles. The pattern is basically garter stitch with two pattern rows that involve wrapping the yarn round the needle on one row and dropping them off the next to create a light lacy look. Not too tricky, I thought, but can I do it? However carefully I count the wraparounds I've got too many stitches at the end of the row, which is where Mr Micawber comes in: 86 stitches, result happiness; 87 stitches, result misery. What idiot was it that said knitting is a good way to cope with the stresses of modern life? Oh yes, it was me! Back to stitch and rip...
Friday 18 January 2008
Happiness or misery?
Charles Dickens' Mr Micawber has been on my mind this week. He's the character in David Copperfield who says: "Annual income £20, annual expenditure £19 nineteen and six, result happiness; annual income £20, annual expenditure £20 nought and six, result misery". Apart from needing a basic knowledge of pre-decimal currency, how does this famous maxim apply to knitting? Well in some ways it's been a pretty dismal knitting week. Good conversations at my knitting group and with friends, the gift of a lovely Shetland Lace pattern from Simply Knitting magazine, and further e-mails from people who saw my letter in The Times. But as far as actual knitting goes, rather a frustrating time. My Arctic Lace scarf is begun and the pattern looks lovely as you can see but there's a mistake I need to attend to when I've finished updating here and to be honest I'm not looking forward to another stint of ripping out and picking up stitches. Hey ho. Then there's the shawl I started working on as a bit of light relief - it's the free gift with this year's Rowan membership (definitely worth having by the way, go to http://www.knitrowan.com/ for details). Just the thing for relaxing from lace, I thought, a cotton yarn on 5mm needles. The pattern is basically garter stitch with two pattern rows that involve wrapping the yarn round the needle on one row and dropping them off the next to create a light lacy look. Not too tricky, I thought, but can I do it? However carefully I count the wraparounds I've got too many stitches at the end of the row, which is where Mr Micawber comes in: 86 stitches, result happiness; 87 stitches, result misery. What idiot was it that said knitting is a good way to cope with the stresses of modern life? Oh yes, it was me! Back to stitch and rip...
