Disorganised? Me? (warning - long!)

Well, I'm having a bit of a frustrating morning, really. Decided I would do a little bit of college work - yes, I know I'm technically on holiday, but I've let it slide the last few weeks and there are still deadlines to meet. Did my sock swatch without much ado - alas, it involved frogging the darling little sock I made t'other week. Oh well. Decide I'll save up all these oddments of yarn and make some kind of washable afghan - G said he wanted one for when he was poorly, something nice to snuggle under when he's feverish. Think about starting said afghan. No, must concentrate on college work!

Hunt for mylar sheets for machine. Can't find a clean one (I *know* I have one somewhere) so spend 20 mins rubbing out one of the ones made for the Coventry Knit Wits banner. Alas, I used HB pencil first before I realised I had to use the proper mylar one, so a lot of rubbing out was necessary. Also tried spraying with water and wiping but nowt came off - sheet looks ok but there is a shadow of the last pattern. Luckily SK840 machine reads shininess not blackness.

Trace pattern onto mylar, then tidy it up. Looks good. Decide to try it out on the machine, fair-isle style. Do weaving cast on. Knit a few rows, start fair-isle. All of a sudden 20-odd stitches decide to leap off one end. Decide to ignore them and cast back on at that end. Get going again. Start a tension swatch. I must point out, at this juncture, that my row counter has packed up. A few weeks back it wouldn't flip from 9 to 10, now it doesn't count at all. Bit useless for a knitting machine - for two pins I'd stick the Brother one on there, but it won't work without a LOT of gaffer tape and swearing I suspect! Tension swatch goes OK, despite some massive long floats and some unwanted loops at the back. Remove second yarn, but forget to cancel fairisle, so instead of some nice neat stocking stitch rows I get some holes that look like we've got a monster moth problem. Cut off machine. Discover the reason the floats are so long - I was only knitting half of the pattern, so on some rows the contrast yarn wasn't used at all, so then it was on the wrong side etc. etc.

Decide to try it again with the correct width selected. Goes a lot smoother this time - still, I forget to cancel fair-isle again and end up with a holey edge. The pattern looks ok though (it was only to test the mylar sheet really).

Decide to try a proper DBJ sample, as that is the technique the garment will be knitted in. Discover the knitting machine manual has gone AWOL. Turn room upside-down cursing my lack of organisation. Decide to have a go anyway - I did it last month, didn't I? And a lot of it is in the ribber and colour changer manuals. Forget (again) that my ribber manual refers to an older machine - when it tells me to switch to the theta symbol (SLIP) it actually means C on my machine and not S. No, I don't know why either, but it's probably in the manual I can't locate!!!

Time for a tea break, methinks. Make a cup of coffee, and try desperately to jam a hot cross bun into the toaster. No dice - had the bottom half toasted, anyway. Sit in the lounge and watch the birds in the back garden. They are obviously nest-building - I feel slightly smug now that we've not really weeded much this year, it means there's plenty of dead stuff for the birds. Someone on one of the MK newsgroups actually puts out yarn cuttings and bits of stuffing (the fibre, not the food) for the nest builders, isn't that sweet?!

Sigh, and wonder where the black hole is that everything seems to have disappeared into lately. I've lost the pendant G got me for xmas, and I'm NOT HAPPY, 'cause it was not cheap - bless him, he hasn't yelled at me or anything, just assured me it must be around somewhere... I also lost one of my hoop earrings that I wear normally when I'm not wearing other earrings. Decide to try and physically relax, it'll all turn up. Look at G's end of the sofa (he's a devil for stashing bills and cables etc between his end of the sofa and the wall) - my earring's there, grinning at me!! What on earth it's doing there, I'll never know!

Come back upstairs somewhat refreshed. Look for manual on ebay - £12.75. At least I know what colour it is now! Decide to hunt in the bedroom for manual - I forgot I shoved a pile of knitting magazines out of sight in a panicked attempt to tidy up. The manual is there! Cue much rejoicing!

Get back to machine. Make a start on double bed jacquard. Discover white 4-ply is far too thick, and the only other new-ish 3-ply I have is black, which is a nightmare to knit whether you're a hand or machine knitter.

Get on computer, to look for my conelist PDF - every time I donate some blanket squares and jumpers to the Coventry RSVP, I've come back with bags of cones. Get distracted and write this post!

I've just remembered why I came back to the PC - and I've got 452g of Bramwell Duo Magic Aran - I hope aran's the colour, not the weight! It says it's 3ply. Fingers crossed it's not too antique or moth-eaten - snapping yarn is a bane to machine knitters. Time to go hunting in the attic, methinks! But the row counter really needs fixing, and I'll have to dig out some screw drivers, and probably some machine oil too, which I don't think I've got. And the sun is shining! Oh sod it, I'm grabbing a cardigan and going outside and knitting on Otis! :)


current mood: amused