Adventures In Lazy Knitting

Remember my towels that were in the washer?  And my whites that were in the dryer?

Yeah, they're still there.

Laundry fail.

On the bright side I spent all that time I could have been folding whites and drying towels finishing my fluffy pink knit.

My goal was to use as much of the yarn as humanly possible.

I think I succeeded.

The yarn is super itchy.  I'm hoping I can get some of that out with a conditioning wash.  But you've already heard how the laundry is going.  So the scarf just sits and waits on my kitchen counter.  I think it is happy there. 

In other news, The Greatest, I love him, but he is not so romantic.  He can be very romantic on occassion.  But usually he is not a fan of the romantic gesture.  Valentine's Day is just a normal day around here.  

Except today he brought me doughnuts

And roses.

Heart shaped doughnuts and Intuition Roses.  The man knows the way to my heart.  I had him pick up a new light for his wood working shop while he was making our daily run to Wal-Mart for milk, cause I'm super romantic like that.  

Back to the knitting, cause I am supposed to be a knitting blog.

Or so I've heard.  

With my pink fluff off the needles I had to pick a new project to work on.  Choices choices choices.  I could dip into the Abyss and rescue some poor UFO.  But I don't want to.  I don't have a good excuse.  I just don't want to. I have a test knit for Knit Picks to knit.  But I had to order new needles (hooray for me!) and they haven't come yet(boo for slow shipping).  I have baby knitting for up coming baby showers.  But I need yarn for one, which is kind of a convenient excuse since I don't really have the heart to knit baby things right now anyways.  Those tiny precious knits will be knit at the last minute, and I still have plenty of time before the last minute.

What's a girl to do?

Cast on for a Creature Comforts cardigan of course.   This particular cardigan is more of an open front shrug featuring a cabled leaf panel on the back and a distinct lack of buttons.  This is especially good since buttons and I aren't currently seeing one another.  It's not me, its the buttons.

I cast on with my favorite cast on, the cabled cast on, and knit an inch and a half of ribbing.  I then began to look at the pattern and the construction of the cardigan a little more closely.  Probably should have done that before I cast on, but that would have been the smart thing to do. I can't do that.

I discovered the entire cardigan is knit as one big square, then the sides are seamed together causing the cast on and the bind off to smoosh up against one another.  There was going to be a great big noticible difference between the cast on and bind off.  The OCD in me was going crazy at the thought.

So I frogged my inch and a half.

I googled how to get the cast on and the bind off to match.  The wisdom of the internet told me the cabled cast on was a perfect match for the regular stitch over stitch bind off.  

I beg to differ.

Seven different sites told me this was true.  I began to wonder if I was doing the cabled cast on wrong, so I looked it up.

Nope, I'm doing it right.

The internet and I will just have to agree to disagree that the cabled cast on matches a traditional bind off.

Ravelry pattern notes suggested to me that I should just use a provisional cast on and then knit all the ribbing at once at the end.  But that would have meant getting off the couch and finding waste yarn.  Then I would have to block with the provisional cast on still in place.  Then seam, then knit the ribbing.

That felt like too much work.

More googling told me the tubular cast on was virtually indistinguishable from the tubular bind off.  But  I don't know how to knit a tubular cast on or bind off.  I'd have to learn a new technique, and it looked like this technique might involve waste yarn, and we've already established that my butt was not getting off the couch to get yarn that was no more than 20 feet away from.  Plus, I didn't want to learn.  That's what smart people do, and we've already established I can not do the smart thing.

An hour later, the lazy in me beat up the OCD in me and I cast on with a cabled cast on and knit an inch and a half of ribbing, creating a piece of knitting identical to what I had previously frogged.  I feel very "meh" about the entire ordeal.

I was going to knit the set in pockets, but it involved waste yarn, and I wouldn't really use the pockets.  So the lazy in me didn't do that either.  Plus, when I got to the part where I should have added pockets, I forgot.

But cast-on fiasco and Pocketgate 2013 aside

I think it is coming along swimmingly.

I can't wait for the kids to go to bed so I can eat my other doughnut in peace, admire my roses and knit some more leaves.  Plus The Greatest is working so I'll be able to turn off Phineas and Ferb and watch whatever trashy TV I want.

Happy Valentine's Day to me indeed!