this is not a post about alcohol consumption

I spent tonight cleaning the house, because it seems Interlocking Rings has kept me from doing so. It also covered the floor of every room with little red and black bits of string. After cleaning up all this mess, this is what I poured for my sweet, hard-working self:



I'll even go on record as saying that the above mixture is probably why this will be an awful post of little quality and even smaller content. I am in no way compensated monetarily to endorse Stolichnaya products, or Blenheim products, but I will say that the two go together alarmingly well. I only happen to have on hand the Stoli Razberi but I also recommend Stoli Persik (peach) and Vanil for your Blenheim Hot Ginger Ale. Why the "hot" as opposed to the "not-as-hot"? I guess I want something strong enough to cut through the sweetness of the vodka. I prefer Blenheim's because it makes me sneeze if I put the glass to my mouth right after I've poured it. Fortunately, the "sneeze effect" dissipates in the time required to take a picture. It is also a right tasty ginger ale. I discovered it a few years ago and after drinking maybe four bottles of it, the only store in town that carried it informed me that they could NO LONGER get it. It was years before I found it again, and now it's everywhere. That seems to be the thing these days. Create a scarcity, freak the people out, then flood the market. That happened with Young's Luxury Double Chocolate Stout a while back and even now when I see it I think, "Should I buy it all now just in case?" It is different with wine, since vintages really do vary, and I wish to God that I had bought all the 1995 Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva I could have gotten my hands on. If only I'd known about the utter silliness of the later vintages!! When I think of that time in my life, the word "squander" comes to mind, but I think that might be the theme for everyone's 22nd year.

Anyway. I am a knitter. That's what I'm here to write about. In my haste to complete the most tedious portion of the Interlocking Rings top, the rings themselves, I made a few mistakes:



First of all, I was ahead by one ring on my count, so my 32nd ring did not get joined to the first, and instead of a continuous loop of rings, I had a long snakey chain that could not be "finessed" into becoming something it wasn't. That was the first clipped ring. Then I made a couple 32nd rings that interlocked in the wrong fashion [over on top and under on bottom, instead of under on top and over on bottom] and they had to be clipped. The next attempt became the ring you see that is not connected to any other ring at all. Boy wasn't I proud of that one! Anyway, I did finally finish the 32nd ring properly, and went promptly to bed. I had started the evening thinking I was going to finish the top and instead spent the whole time cutting rings and swearing.



I was in such a tizzy to finish (for what? no deadline here) that I failed to take pictures of the next few steps. Once finished with the ring, I pinned each ring to its neighbors and then pinned them to the top. Sewing the rings to the top was a cinch but I was worried about fit at this point: once the rings were sewn on, it still seemed like the lower yoke portion was way too big. Fortunately the pattern clearly stated how to join the rings above with rounds of single crochet in order to "tighten up" the yoke... and it fits perfectly! I opted out of the picot edging, knowing that if I even tried it I would hate it, and if I actually wore it I would think only of the picot edging the entire time. "Why am I wearing picot? Pink I can handle, lace I can handle, but picot?"

A preview?



I must say, a couple rounds of single crochet is a really quick and tidy way of finishing edges. I have already modified plans for a future project in order to include this feature (and that meant scrapping all the seed stitch, oh well). Once I weave in all the ends (since pretty much I am DONE) I will include a pic of the top IN ACTION!!

In the meantime, I've been working on (and messing up on) the Lucky wrap cardi:



Regard the lovely on-gauge swatch! I've come to accept the brightness of the pink in this particular dyelot of "cheeky." Which is not to say I love it. But... it will have its place in my wardrobe, it will just be a different place. I have taken much inspiration from this particular bloggeuse and her experience with Lucky. I spent some time this evening measuring myself to make sure that Lucky's shaping will match P. Acrylique's shaping, and it seems to be working out. I am not following the pattern exactly and I think that is part of my problem. I seem to do more "thinking" about this project than I do knitting on it.

I have been spacing out at work recently thinking about knitting. It's not the first time, but it was the first time that I started a list of all my projects, starting with the on-needles, then including the "needing fixing" and "needing major ripping," to the projects I've always vowed to totally rip out and reknit into something entirely different, and lastly... the projects for which I have the yarn but have not yet begun. It's scary to have everything on paper like that. It makes me realise how much YARN I have, and it also makes me think about what projects I have considered (and even started) but don't actually want to wear. [What was I thinking?] And then there's the random stash yarn that has no project in mind whatsoever... just hangin' out...