Yey! vs. Meh...

Conflicting emotions when it comes to knitting in the last couple of days.

On the Yey! front, Knit Night over at Prague went a little crazy as not one, not two, but five new faces came through the door, in such quick succession that it was comical. Two of them were a crocheting couple - see, boys do this stuff too you know - and the entire group got a whole crochet envy thing going by the end of the evening. Yet another thing to add to the to-do list.

So there were 11 of us in the end! We had to grab a second table, squeezing everyone in round the door but it was great. Such a lovely atmosphere with everyone happily chatting away - must remember to take my camera next time.

But then there's Martha (scroll down for the pic). Now there are folks over on Ravelry desperately hunting for this pattern as copies of Rowan Studio Two seem to be hard to find in the States, but I'm half tempted to email them saying not to bother. Which is odd, as it's not really a disaster.

It's in Felted Tweed, which is lovely. The cabling is fiddly but looks good when it's done. Unlike some Rowan patterns, it's a pretty good fit and the swing part doesn't turn it into a maternity outfit. And with short sleeves it's sweet for layering over things.

And yet. Meh...

I think part of the problem is that I'm a bit bored of it by now. It took ages to knit, in a fiddly, tiresome sort of way. Then there are three button bands to pick up (about 250 stitches). Then you have to sew together endless bits and pieces, which is frustrating in such a small garment. But also there are aspects of the design that I'm not crazy about.

The cabling,as I say, is pretty but it's so far over that it's not actually very visible (but try and move it and it's running down over your boobs, which wouldn't work either of course). But, more annoyingly, the cables are the edge of the armsyce. After shaping, there are no edge stitches, so when you set the sleeves the seam has to go through the edge of the cabling, which just looks a bit messy. With all that effort it seems such a shame that you don't get a nice clean line to show off the cables. And finally, the textured knit/purl pattern that borders the body and sleeves doesn't quite lit flat. Which I suppose is a nice contrast to the flatness of the stockinette around it, but it sort of rolls, even after ironing/blocking.

In know, I'm being hopelessly pedantic. I'm sure it will settle the more I wear it, or after a wash. At least it's done, instead of sitting on the arm of my sofa and glaring at me every time I pick up something more interesting. Once I have some daylight I'll take some pictures and you can decide for yourself.

On a separate note, it seems the whole Twitter thing is about to get crazy. As you may know, people like Stephen Fry have been tweeting madly for months, with thousands of people following him. Fair enough and I guess it's nice he's talking to his fans, but then Fry is a well known technophile. He's now been joined by some less obvious characters, like Jonathan Ross. I confess I wasn't that interested in what he was up to even before I discovered his Twitter name is Wossy. 'Nuff said. But, as others have pointed out, Fry is one of Ross's guests on his first show back after the suspension and you can bet Twitter is going to come up.

Then there's the Twitterer the Daily Mail threatened with legal action (so he must be doing something right). He was tweeting as The Daily Mail, posting satirical, sarcastic, mildly offensive headlines, but he's now amended it to Not Daily Mail. (Of course this is a classic example of something going a little bit Hawking as it straddles existence in two realities simultaneously - although not The Daily Mail it's so terrifyingly realistic that it essentially is The Daily Mail). Twitter-related stories just seem to keep popping up in the papers lately.

As with blogging and FaceBook, I suspect it may become one of those internet things that no one really needs, but everyone somehow ends up using.

And one final thought for this evening. BSG starts up again in the States on Friday and then on FX over here (but alas, I don't have cable). So how the hell am I meant to avoid the gazillions of internet spoilers that will soon be everywhere, telling us all who the final 12th Cylon is and thus destroying the one key question of a four-season story??!

Sorry.

Realise I'm scaring you now with my sci-fi telly geekery. But seriously. This is going to be a nightmare to avoid...