Knit on through all crises...

Front of "Take a turn". It'll look better when it's made up, I promise!

The cheat sheets, all three of them - I didn't bother creating one for the back, because the cables all start on the same row and as luck would have it the first twist was R206, so I just used my six times table and ignored the 200 for each twist. As it happened the carriage was on the right for start of the armhole, so next time I might pencil in L and R after the fact. H is short for hold, C is for cable, I used D later on for the neck decreases and would use I for increases - not applicable here. The scribble says "Mark" - you mark the cable gutter four rows before the first cross. If you don't have access to a spreadsheet program you could easily draw this up freehand. Well worth the ten minutes it took to do.

The hopeful geranium - I bought this for £2 at the supermarket, it was all alone because it hardly had any flowers on it. This is the THIRD time it's flowered this year, and it cheers my view every day. There was a third sprig but alas I poked around a bit, trying to give it more space, and it snapped off. I have no idea what the number on the calculator is about, I sometimes wonder if it's got limited intelligence and is trying to communicate with me somehow. 

A few weekends ago, we went for a quick ramble, despite the lowering darkness on the horizon. About twenty minutes in, we got caught in a short shower, and took refuge under a tree. We were treated to this rainbow, which was actually continuous (alas it didn't all fit in my smartphone's viewfinder so you'll have to take my word for it). Probably only just visibile - Rugby Cemex is about where the pot of gold should be. The rainbow was a lot more neon in person, alas the camera never does it justice. 

Current mood: happy

The second time's the charm (almost)

Well, after an aborted attempt last night I got the first sleeve done, with (I thought!) no mistakes. Thanks to an ingenious suggestion from both a German and an American member of the Passap machine knitting group on Ravelry, I've now got a trick which makes working cables fool-proof. It's a hint that's so neat it's in the "why didn't I think of that?" category. When working a cable which alternates left or right, make the cross happen on an odd row, and cross towards the lock or carriage position. In this case, I did a left cross when the lock was on a row ending in 5 (lock on left), and a right cross when the lock was on a row ending in 0 (lock is on right). Lost track? Just look at where your lock is. Genius! Of course, as the increases are every 6 rows, it means a lot more stopping and starting, but never mind! An example of a lovely poncho was shared, which had a panel of about 10 cables up the front. 

You noted I said I thought I'd made no mistakes? Well, on each cable row I brought an empty back bed needle into work, to add extra yarn for the cable cross. In most cases I remembered - but not always. My partner came in to talk to me and I missed one - and the yarn must have snapped. Luckily the stitches didn't get very far and it's been (almost invisibly) repaired with a length of yarn. Only another knitter might spot it, and I'm hoping that once the garment has been washed it'll disappear. It's lambswool so it will felt and become self-securing. Hopefully!

Maybe I should invest in a "do not disturb" sign - as the Cog was coming to tell me about his latest guitar pedal, it felt cruel to be rude! He'd ordered one via Amazon, which turned out to be faulty (it buzzed as soon as it was plugged in) and clearly it was not even brand new nor well-packed. The second one came from PMT in Birmingham, well-packed and worked immediately with no buzzing. He did make me chuckle, showed me a page with a guitarist's version of the engineering flow chart. "Is it buzzing? Yes? You are a bee!" I used to have a print of that flowchart on my desk, back when we still had places we could pin things. 

The mood's apathetic. I'm trying to focus on staying positive and on things I can control. Little wins - watching good films and having laughs with my sweetie. Clearly I can't control how others behave at the moment, however much that might hurt me. We will all be changed by this I think. Let's hope it's for the better. 

Current mood: apathetic