Wings o'the Moth progress

So not much blogging from me - Last week was absolutely hellatious in my part of the world! In every sense of the word - hellatious! Awful - just bad all the way around.... So I just dove into a book after work just about every night last week. I'm reading the Green Angel Tower series, and it's OK so far. But when I'm looking to escape from my own reality for just a bit having a whole series (4 books) on hand is a good thing! And to top it all off: the BBE was working up in Lake Tahoe from Monday through till Thursday - so not even any good cuddle time, or pats on the head, or anything. So I spent a lot of time after work in bed reading. Cuz y'all know - when the man's outta town, I'm real busy getting myself into all kinds of trouble. And when the going gets tough - the tough take to their beds!

So I have not spun on either of my wheels for at least whole week (shock! horror!)- projects have languished. I still have not found that last ball of yarn for my Caramel Swirl cardigan. I do have more that I can spin for it - I'll need to spin a tiny bit of alpaca - and a fair bit of camel down (at least I'll make a dent in the pound and a half that I bought from Little Barn, but I won't even need much more than a quarter of a Joy bobbin to finish off the CS), so I do have singles left for 3 out of 4 plies, and I really don't need much more yarn to finish it off anyway. I've been hoping that the missing ball will turn up - but I've cleaned the house, and done the laundry. Checked in the cars, and the BBE's house. No sign of it. Maybe I'm just crazy and used that ball already? I don't think so. Who wants to bet that it will turn up as soon as I've spun and plied more yarn for it and finished the darn thing off? A hat to match might just be in the cards.

I did pick up the Wings o'the Moth shawl Friday afternoon and ripped it back to where things were still ok. (right before the 2nd purpley band), and then proceeded to knit - I knit Friday night. I knit most of the day on Saturday, and I knit for the first part of Sunday. I stopped when I got to the second chart (twin leaf lace) because I'm not understanding the directions at this point.

I've done the reverse stockinette ridge, and placed more markers where directed. I've done the first set up row, which all went really well - all my stitch counts were good, and I ended up with the right number of knit stitches at the markers. But then it looks like the pattern (and the charts) are telling you to have the markers in completely different places than where the directions specified. I put it to the side to let it percolate in the back of my brain, and did the mountains of laundry that had piled up during my descent into the Green Angel Tower series. Swept the front of the house, vacuumed, and generally tidied up. I also got rid of half of a small mountain of clothes - and have found that I actually have a bit of room in my tiny little closet! I've talked about the fact that I live in a tiny place before - but I'm not kidding when I say that the only closet that I have available is probably less than 3' wide. Add that to the fact that I literally had things in my closet that I've never worn.

I've looked at the errata posted on the website. I see no fix there to unstick me. There really are a couple of areas here that just aren't making sense to me. I know I have massive difficulties following directions - but I really should be able to get this... I spent my lunch 1/2 hour counting stitches and going back and forth in the directions, to come to the conclusion that I am really and truly stuck. So I e-mailed the designer and hopefully my detailed questions and bad Ascii art will make some sort of sense to her, and she can unstick me.

Anyway - I have lots of pretty pictures!

This is the backside - which looks a tremendous amount like egg crate foam. And is just kind of intereting all by itself.

I just heard back from Anne @ Knitspot. Apparently my inablility to follow a pattern has once again reared it's ugly head. She is telling me that the stitch markers aren't placed symmetrically! THUD! I don't do so well with non-symmetrical stuff. I like symmetry - it makes my heart sing. She was very nice and even offered her phone number to talk me through all this - which I might just have to take her up on.

My brain just keeps saying - not-symmetrical - not-symmetrical!! Must take deep breaths! I love this shawl, it is so very pretty - I want it - I want to have it - I want it in my pretty handspun, which is showcasing the pattern in a stunning way. I am really hoping and praying that I will end up getting into the darker pinky/purple at the end of the ball... There's another version that the designer knit where she was running out of yarn, so threw in a stripe in the Corona pattern, and it's just stunning!

So I will update y'all with the progress that I might make on this one. I am actually capable of doing something like this pattern. If I can wrap my poor little brain around non-symmetrical stitch markers! Ow Ow Ow.

And in the mean time - I leave you with a nice cheerful sunflower - just cuz - you know, they're so damn photogenic!

And cheerful!