Knitting again

The slump is over...or so I hope.

Early this evening I cast on for the hat my mom wants me to make her. She bought the yarn--Cascade 220 in a purple colorway (8886)--and it's been up to me to knit it. Due to work and an increase in movie review writing, my knitting activity has been in a holding pattern for much of this month. It has been my experience that knitting loosens me up to be a more productive writer. The reverse has not been true, at least recently. Both are meditative activities, except the writing has been draining my energy and leaving me too wiped out to knit.

Although I had my share of problems, I'll take today's knitting resumption as a sign that things are back to normal. It's been awhile since I've cast on for a hat, so I forgot that I needed to add an extra stitch for joining in the round. I didn't realize the error until I was almost done with the first round. This was the second attempt at starting the hat after not allowing enough yarn for the tail during the first cast on.

The third time was the charm, sort of. I had enough stitches on the needles, but as I went to join in the round, I discovered that I had tangled the yarn around and through one of the magic loops splitting the stitches. Don't ask me how I made such a mess. I'm still perplexed. It took several minutes to sort out what was going on. Everything seemed fine until I got to the second half of the stitches. They started becoming harder to work because the cable was twisting quite a bit. Again, I'm not certain what happened, but I think I may have put one of the needles through one of the magic loops. I thought I would have some twisted stitches, but once I got the needles in the right places, everything was good.

It felt good to be knitting again. I was reminded that I really want to begin a scarf for myself. That's putting the cart before the horse, though. I need to finish this hat and get through February 11, which is when I can officially put awards season to bed. (That night we tape two shows , one related to the Oscars and another summarizing the best and worst of last year.) So hang in there with me. I'm frustrated that I haven't been able to knit and write as much about it as I would like, but I may have turned a corner today.