Have you looked along the right side of this page? There you will find some interesting things – a link to Petfinder that also has a featured pet picture, links to other sites that I enjoy. check it out! There is also a site meter that counts the number of times people have visited PurlingSwine and a countdown to my birthday (2 days left)!

So where am I going with all of this? Well, to save you the trouble of trying to figure out what the perfect birthday gift would be ;) I have a great, simple idea …. the site meter is up around the 900 mark how about driving it up to 1000? happybirthdaypurlingswinehappybirthdaypurlingswine

Tonight some knitting friends are coming over for a mini lesson in sock knitting. They obviously don’t read this blog – after yesterday’s rant, no one in their right mind would want lessons from me! Although, I should say that in the manner of many teachers, I know what should be done, I just don’t always do it! Hopefully these ladies won’t be camera shy and I will have some pics to post tomorrow.

Have you looked along the right side of this page? There you will find some interesting things – a link to Petfinder that also has a featured pet picture, links to other sites that I enjoy. check it out! There is also a site meter that counts the number of times people have visited PurlingSwine and a countdown to my birthday (2 days left)!

So where am I going with all of this? Well, to save you the trouble of trying to figure out what the perfect birthday gift would be ;) I have a great, simple idea …. the site meter is up around the 900 mark how about driving it up to 1000? happybirthdaypurlingswinehappybirthdaypurlingswine

Tonight some knitting friends are coming over for a mini lesson in sock knitting. They obviously don’t read this blog – after yesterday’s rant, no one in their right mind would want lessons from me! Although, I should say that in the manner of many teachers, I know what should be done, I just don’t always do it! Hopefully these ladies won’t be camera shy and I will have some pics to post tomorrow.

Why do I resist things that I know are good for me — exercise, dieting and swatching for example. Leaving the diet & exercise for another diatribe, let’s talk about swatching.

It never fails … I start a project and rather than do a swatch I will knit up or down a size figuring ‘it will all work out’. I have left projects to linger for years knowing that the gauge is off and they won’t fit, when they do finally come into my line of sight again, I usually just throw them out, rather than deal with it. I have ripped countless projects back, time and time again. I have switched to knitting scarves — what the hell, they always fit! When the girls were little (they are now 16 and 13), it didn’t seem to matter, anything that was too big, they would grow into. But those days are gone and things have changed except my bad knitting habits.

I attended Stitches East two years ago. I took June Hiatt’s wonderful class on swatching and figuring out gauge. I have computer software to do the math for crying out loud! If you read back through my archives, you will see an entry where I actually did do a swatch. This was because my good knitting friend came over to knit and she shamed encouraged me to do a swatch.

So now I am working on mittens — a simple, straightforward project. I even have a silhouette of the recipient’s hand!

Saturday Night:

spend hour mulling over the silhouette and the pattern

don’t swatch, figure knitting down a size will do the trick

start mitten

get 3/4 of the way through and realize it is too big

rip

Sunday

still think about what to do

decide you must swatch

make swatch

calculate gauge

start mitten

get 1/2 way through and realize this is crappy yarn

rip

go to stash and find better yarn

Monday

start mitten with better yarn

make some headway

realize that you should have swatched with the new yarn!

rip

bang head on wall

Tuesday

don’t knit in disgust with yourself

read book instead

Wednesday

still reading

Thursday

finally finish what should have only taken an hour or two

bear in mind — this is only one mitten — it is a two handed recipient!