It's happened again

Damn and Double Damn. It's happened again. Yes, I'm talking about the alpaca vest done in waffle stitch.

I've come to the conclusion that the waffle stitch hates me. The yarn may like this stitch, but it's not reciprocated.

There I was, booking along on this vest, watching tv, happy as a clam. Until I looked down and saw this:

It's difficult to see the mistakes, but you'll notice the red arrows, I'm sure. Below red = good. Red and up = bad. Just look at all those purl stitches clustered together like a bunch of old biddies that shouldn't be clustering together. I don't know for the life of me what I'm doing differently than on the yellow side, but now I get to rip for the second time in a week and just about the same amount. Damn.

I may go back to spinning more yarn instead knitting it.

Spinning!

Way back in July I got this really pretty batch of roving which you can see here. I am still working on spinning it up. Yes, still. There was/is a ton of it. Part of the reason that it is taking me so long to get this finished is that I am having to card it up to get the various and sundry tangles out of it. On my little dog slicker brushes, that is taking a while. The resulting rolags are tiny.

I picked it up again yesterday and finally found a workable system. I card some, spin some. I had been doing all carding and then all spinning and both were getting tedious. I think that I prefer spinning stuff that has at least some color changes to it. The yarn that I am getting is pretty, but the spinning of it leaves much to be desired.

Here is what I did last night = it's still on the niddy noddy:

Click to Enlarge

I really like the results I'm getting. I just wish it wasn't taking me so long to get it done. I really, really want to play with the fiber that I got at SAFF. I'm trying to be good and finish it first though.

*****

By the way, You know it's getting cold when...

...Every single time you sit down at your desk you get a lap full of cat:

Have you voted?

Did you vote today like a good American? The hubby and feel it is our civic duty to cancel out the votes of my in-laws. :)

It's not like my vote is really going to count anyway. The electoral college is where the President is picked, the popular vote doesn't really count. If you don't believe me, look at poor Al Gore's run for President. Bush = electoral, Gore = popular. Who got to be President? Not that I voted for Gore, mind you, but I actually thought my candidate would be a good choice. oops.

Knitting news - I have ripped back the vest and am now trying to get those stitches made back up. I'd show you, but didn't you see more progress yesterday? Looks worse now, trust me.

If you haven't already voted- do so! At least let yourself believe that you have a say.

For you in foreign countries - sit back and enjoy the show of the elections!

Knitting & Halloween, but not in that order

Halloween is such an exciting time for the kiddies. They get dressed up in their favorite costumes, argue because they want their sibling's accessories, and fun is had by everyone except Mom and Dad. Right?

This is what the first half of the evening looked like:

Woody really wanted the Evil Paladin Knight's Trident. It's tough being a good guy sheriff all the time. Sometimes you just want to get on 'Ol Bullseye and wave a trident around instead of a gun. The Evil Paladin Knight wasn't having any of that nonsense though and so there were many, many tears and screams of anger from Woody. Mom's hair garnered a few more grays in the process. Not that I needed any more highlights.

'Ol Tex seemed to get over it alright though, but Bullseye got left at home:

Evil Demon kitty did too. We didn't want to frighten the neighborhood youngsters:

I am heartily sick of all the candy. I have no willpower when it comes to Snickers and Twix and Milky Way and, and, and... I have eaten my weight in chocolate, my pants seem to have shrunk and my face is breaking out. But anyway, That's enough of Halloween!

On to Knitting now:

When last I spoke of knitting I was on the way to SAFF, I tried really hard to make this beautiful gray alpaca yarn become the Honeycomb Vest, but it would. not. succomb. My wants and wishes were ignored. The yarn just didn't want to become that vest.

Well, I still wanted an alpaca vest. So it was back to the drawing board. I picked the Thermal Vest instead. And guess what? It's working:

Sort of. See the third row down? Yep, mistake. I get to go and rip this back now and fix it or it will bother me forever. But still, the yarn likes the pattern! Yay!