Of destashing and men

(with apologies to John Steinbeck)

I was ruthless on Tuesday night and dug out some stuff in the "ooh pretty" department - yarn bought with no thought of its future use. Some Denys Magicolour in a burgundy went to Jeanette, who fondled it for a good ten minutes before we forced it on her. Some Rowan cotton, and Riverside acrylic in blues for Julie, and in pink for Claire. Christina was quite restrained and took some leftover Trekking and the red leftover from the cowl neck I made last month. Nobody took a fancy to the black squiggly with multicoloured flashes, not the pastel superchunky from a jumper I unravelled. I may still make them into something. It was quite a nice feeling to despatch those items from the stash in Ravelry. I should stash dive more often. I gained some books, "Crocheting for Dummies" being one of them. I'm far from a dummy in that department, but I do like a good diagram! Memories of an old maths teacher come back to me - he would roam the desks, exclaiming "Superb diagram!" every so often.

The MK group I co-moderate on Ravelry has suddenly gained a competitor, in the form of a trader. I suspect, in all innocence, she didn't bother to check the groups out before creating a new one (with an almost identical name). I'm a little disappointed we're invisible; she might also want to make it clear she's a trader and therefore has a slightly ulterior motive (our group is run by enthusiastic mkers with no shop to market). Having said that, I made the exact same mistake when I joined - I morphed the group I'd created into one specifically for Passaps. Don't get me wrong - people are free to create any groups they like - I just think they should be above board in the description so that members are aware the moderator is also a trader.

I've been trying to wrestle with the Form computer, a magic bit of programming that comes with the Passap E6000. Basically, you measure a swatch, and measure yourself, and put in a long column of figures, and it tells you how to knit a jumper. For example, it will tell you when to stop ribbing, and when to cast off. Sounds great - except, I can't get it to work for me. I've rechecked the figures (and even tried a different shape), but I get error 161, which means the machine cannot do what I ask. I'm guessing it's because I have lots of curves "up top", and need something too wide for the machine. I ran the figures through Knitware and it wanted 276 needles (I have only 200). I might try a different stitch size - it might be borderline enough that I could get away with it - but I'm not hopeful! The daft thing is, I have a perfectly good Japanese machine, that I know can make large enough knitting for me. And that machine is actually smaller in width than the Passap. I may end up using that machine, but it means more swatching. I'm really hoping I didn't buy the Passap just to make baby blankets, and clothes for stick insect women. That would just be ridiculous!