How do you solve a problem like

G'day all!

What do you do when you pick up a languishing UFO and decide to finish it, only to find that after one row, your ears and throat are itching and your hands are burning? Is this why it is a UFO? Because you are allergic to alpaca and it has 10% alpaca? You've knitted and worn a jacket made out of the same yarn (in a different colour) without any problems, but that was before you tried processing and spinning alpaca fleece.

So do I take antihistamines and finish it or do I frog it and try to pass on the yarn to a new home (preferably by swapping for something else). It may be dusty, though it has been kept in bags and/or boxes.

In the meantime, another UFO has been glaring at me from half under my armchair. I put it there so it would guilt me into finishing it. That plan did work, eventually - a month or so later I pulled my finger out. After all it is tedious having to pick it up to vacuum under it.

fo_mess

Looks like a mess, doesn't it?

fo_mess_stretched

It is made out of some Marta's Yarns - Slubby and magic 2-ply laceweight. I can remember lurking in her shop in the city eyeballing the Slubby, knowing it was naughty to buy it but feeling the siren call.... then I found a little scrap of laceweight to make a scribble shawl out of. It also has beads strung on the laceweight (imagine trying to get them on the slubby yarn!).

fo_mess_on

It could almost work as a wrap except I am one of those people who catches on *everything*. Sometimes things go out of their way to attack me - branches and twigs that sway that bit further to snag me, that sort of thing.

Anyway, it is one less UFO to worry me. I now have the jacket, a glub (oversized mitten with two wrist holes for handholding), a kid mohair wrap and a mosaic sock to finish off. Plus a lovely shawl but I can't find the yarn for it - it is a tiny ball of laceweight to do a picot edge down the sides. I can't get more of the yarn cos I hand-dyed it ages ago and there is no more of the base plus my dyes are from a different batch. Oh, the curtain - that is a biggy! The cable baby hat that I started at guild in ?October or November. November. It got separated from the pattern and I find one or the other but not both at the same time.

I wonder what other UFOs will come lurking out to attack me if I search? I am sure I left some at home. Ah I just remembered a sock. I hate the yarn - feels like cotton, though it is wool, and my gauge is wrong so it is stiff. I can remember riding the bus Back 'Ome and knitting that sock - I have no idea why I was on the bus rather than driving but it seemed like a good idea at the time. I think I decided to Go Exploring and the bus went in a straight line to a place I'd never really been, so I hopped on and knitted away merrily. That sock might get frogged and the yarn repurposed.

I now have two new WIPS - a sock and a shawl. I don't know what it is with shawls and me. I don't wear them but I seem to like knitting them. No prizes for guessing what yarn I am knitting the sock out of.

Gosh we are having noisy day today. The volatile (red-headed) girl on the diagonal from us is having a screaming match on her phone, I think - you don't normally stand and argue with thin air? The baby upstairs is teething I think - he's the right age and he's wailing more than usual. He is at last past the h-wah-h-wah crying. The bad thing about getting somewhat more (but not all) of my hearing back is I can hear things that I might not want to hear. The good part? I can often hear the pot boiling over on the stove or the food making the Bad Noise (burning), I can hear my husband, and I can hear the little birdies outside. That is if people aren't yelling on the phone and the little man upstairs isn't bellowing. LOL

Could be worse, I could be Back 'Ome, where it is 31C at 6:45am and is headed for 43C (109F) today, tomorrow and Friday (actually yesterday, today and tomorrow, oz time).

anon!

Comments

  1. Your scribble lace project is great. Shame about the allergy though - that is quite a reaction.

    ReplyDelete

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