The Secret Knitter vs. Katia Duende

My first two knitted scarves have been completed with relative ease. There were some bumps in the road and necessary stealth interventions, but all things considered, I got them done without facing any major problems.

As is often the case in life, those things that demand the hardest work can be the most rewarding. Or they simply make you want to scream. I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of frustration and a tremendous sense of accomplishment as I duel with my gorgeous opponent, the purple Katia Duende yarn. (The name sounds like it belongs to an alluring Spanish actress.) Living up to its name, "duende" can translate as "the ability to attract others through personal magnetism and charm", "a ghost, an evil spirit", and "inspiration".

True, it's for the best not to look at this yarn as an opponent. Obviously I'm going to have an easier time if I work with it rather than fight it. I paid attention in my nonwestern religion class--okay, I paid attention in all my classes--and always liked how Taoism, in simplified terms, emphasizes going with the flow. Acknowledging what is beyond your control and letting go of it is a main tenet of many religions, but I suppose I've linked it with this eastern one. After all, is this that different from Matthew 6:25-34? (That's not to say I'm always very good at practicing it.) This yarn is going to test my patience, but I expect it will be worth it in the end.

I wanted to start knitting it almost as soon as I bought it. I can't wait to see how the two skeins evolve into a beautiful scarf, even if the process takes as long as evolution itself. This is finer, furrier yarn than I've used, which presents an immediate challenge. The label indicated that US 8s should be used. I don't own anything smaller than 10s, so Kristin suggested I try 10 1/2s or 11s. She also gave me input on how many stitches I might want to cast on. There wasn't a hard and fast answer, so it meant I would have to experiment and discover the right number myself.

I decided to begin with the deep blue US 10 1/2 needles. I cast on the stitches, which tended to bunch up quickly, and tried to gauge the width when I had finished twelve. It looked a little too narrow, so I cast on three more until the width looked right to me. So far, so good, although trouble was in view. In addition to the stitches possibly being cast on too tightly, the dark needles and smaller gauge were giving me a devil of a time figuring out what were the individual stitches. I made an educated guess that the black threads were what I wanted to count and hoped the purple eyelash threads swirling around these main lines would cooperate when I started knitting.

Somehow I ended up knitting one or two stitches twice and dropping another one or two. The numbers evened out, though! I was taking my time, but seeing where I needed to put the needle and getting it there was problematic. I knit a couple rows on Monday night before setting it aside for another time.

Tuesday night was even less productive. After knitting one row, it was apparent that my project was in need of frogging. (What a great word.) There wasn't much to rip out, which minimized the pain of undoing work, but having never done it, I waited for an expert to show me how.

That means it's time for another edition of Kristin's Parking Garage Knit Fixes. (Be sure to get your tickets for a to be announced tour stop at Easton.) I've been keeping my knitting hush-hush, but with all of these knitting repairs amid parked cars, practically half of Columbus has witnessed my secret. There was a big potential audience this time as exiting cars were backed up for a significant amount of time after the Borat screening. (The film is hysterically funny and oh so wrong in many ways. And yes, how strange that I'm referencing Scripture and praising this crude comedy in the same post.) Maybe the passers-by thought it was some comedic stunt in the spirit of the film.

Kristin agreed that frogging was in order and proceeded to unravel my knitting. It fell apart so delicately, which seemed contrary to "ripping out". Some of the stitches didn't want to separate because the colored slubs created knots in the yarn, but she worked out most of the trouble spots until approaching a cluster of knots near the cast-on stitches. She patiently traced how the yarn was knotted, but it wasn't coming undone. Since this wasn't a lot of yarn to lose, out came the scissors.

She thought the 11s might make the yarn easier to knit, so she held the skein while I cast on the stitches. Like the 10 1/2s, the violet US 11s made it difficult to see the black strands. Kristin thought I might have an easier time going up another needle size. Plus, the US 13s are pink, which solved the problem of being able to see the black strands. She cast on fourteen stitches to the larger needles, and I was good to go. For that matter, so was she. The parking garage traffic had thinned out considerably.

Next...how Sacha Baron Cohen's last-minute flight led to a knitting in public opportunity.