Yesterday was an odd day for me. For some reason I felt "off", antsy, nervy... At some point, I decided perhaps a bit of knitting would relax me. Perhaps I was right. However, it didn't take me long to realize an intricate lace pattern, particularly one that I've been working on for a long time with excellent results, and am near the halfway point on, is not the knitting project to choose when feeling "off".
The first row of my 10 row repetition went okay. About halfway in to the second row I allowed myself to become distracted. I discovered it is easier to become distracted on an "off" day. While this was discouraging, it didn't upset me too much. I had made mistakes in this pattern before and managed to work it back and re knit it. I then proceeded to attempt just that. It was then that I discovered while attempting to knit an intricate lace pattern when one is feeling off may not be the best idea, attempting to fix a mistake when feeling jittery is a hugely bad idea! I somehow managed to drop a stitch, and between the complexities of this particular pattern, and the fiber I was working with, along with my aging eyes, all I managed to do in attempting to correct my error was to make it worse.
Perhaps a more experienced knitter could have frogged the piece back to a point they could start afresh. While I've got a couple years of experience behind me, I've still got a ways to go. My eyes aren't that good, and I was nowhere near the the top of my personal best. My beautiful lace creation is now history. I am now considering whether to start this same piece over from the beginning, or if I should opt for a different pattern. There are a couple patterns I'm interested in trying but, they both look even more complicated than the original pattern I was working on, and at least one of them, while really quite nice, and it does possess one quality that would be even more desirable in the finished product, has a less intricate finished look to it. Ah well. I think I'll work up a swatch of the other one, then decide.
On a brighter note, I did find something to do yesterday which made me feel much better. It chased the jitters away, made our house smell good, and in the end, I was rewarded with smiles all around.
Many years ago, when my now grown daughters were young, I had a recipe for cheese crackers that my children really enjoyed. Somehow, after so many years, and numerous moves, I managed to lose this recipe. Since being introduced to the joys of cyberspace, I have spent countless hours searching in vain for this particular recipe. I have, however found several recipes that came close. Yesterday afternoon I decided to try tweaking one of these recipes just a bit to see if I could come up with a satisfactory rendition of the original recipe. The results of my experiment fell short of my expectations, but my family, especially the two youngest members of my family, were thrilled with the results. That made me feel good, and the physical aspect of working the dough was just what my jittery mood needed. With my families overwhelming support, I plan to experiment a bit more with this recipe in the very near future. I have all kinds of ideas to change it up, and expect I will end up trying various options before coming up with what I will consider the perfect cracker. Naturally, I'll be keeping you all updated on the progress ;-)
Lesson learned: When feeling jittery, kitchen utensils trump knitting needles!
Saturday Night At The Movies
Last nights feature event was one the kids chose from the list I had put together for them through Netflix. Over the Hedge was an excellent choice that the whole family enjoyed. Some portions had the kids laughing out loud, others found Ma and Pa chuckling, and many received laughter from all four of us at the same time. We also enjoyed trying to place the voices we knew were part of the cast, including William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Wanda Sykes, Gary Shandling, Bruce Willis and more. I'm going to have to go online to see how many we guessed correctly. This is an animated film I would recommend for the whole family.
Pa's roasting a ham for dinner tonight.He's popping an acorn squash in beside it for a side dish I was rather hoping to make some bread today, but the timing wouldn't quite work out. I may make a quick bread instead, maybe cornbread. Or perhaps I'll go with a casserole bread, which is a yeast bread but not quite so time consuming. I've an old cheese bread recipe in mind. I'm thinking that would go well with the rest of the meal... Tomorrow, I'll let you know what I ended up doing, and perhaps, provide a recipe..
My day is rapidly getting away from me! Must step away from the keyboard...
Hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday!
No comments:
Post a Comment