fear and loathing

Something happened to me the other day that I never in a million years ever expected would happen; I actually experienced total hatred of something I was knitting....it came on gradually as I was making it, but with each row it grew and grew until by the end it was all that I could do to keep from taking the scissors to it:


After it was all cast off and finished, I just tossed it into my basket, I couldn't stand to look at it anymore. I won't tell you what it is supposed to be, just in case I hurl it into a flaming fire pit to become a ball of melted acrylic. Barring that, there's a few more things that need to be done to it before it's technically finished, if it ever makes it that far. The day after the tossing, I looked at it and still thought it was pure evil. I'm not sure why I hated it so much, sure it's acrylic, and some people would argue that's basis enough, but I think it had a little to do with the fact that I knit it on double pointed needles, and got horrible ladders going up the whole way.

Can you see them? They are right in the middle of the picture...I was frustrated because I seem to have been able to correct the ladder problem on knit stitches, but no matter what I tried (and I tried a lot of things, including cursing violently) I couldn't get rid of those hateful loose stitches on the purling rows. In the end I tried to 'borrow' a little from each side of the offending stitches to make it less noticable, but trust me, this picture is kind, you can see the ladders all the way up and down in the 3 places where the needles met. If any of you smarter more experienced knitters have any helpful advice for me I would greatly appreciate it. At one point during the madness I said to Cee that I think I may have reached the pinacle of my knitting abilities and I may not be able to get any better, and he helpfully suggested I should take a break from knitting...oh, he's a funny one, allright. Does it make me crazy that I finished it even though I was hating it so much? Memo to self: Remember, it's supposed to be fun and relaxing....I know, try not to laugh to hard at that one...

Yesterday I busied myself making a few of these little guys

Which, if I don't decide to hurl out the offending thing, are actually part of it...it's a little leaf, or it wants to be anyway.

I've been doing a little Spring cleaning knitting, getting rid of a lot of my kitchen cotton yarn in the most fun way I know how:

No matter how many of these I make I never seem to have any for myself....but it doesn't bother me, I just like making them.

I've been looking out at the garden lately, at all the weeds...weeds seem to be the only things we can grow with any consistency (aside from my tomato plants last year). Our area has prohibited spraying herbicides and pesticides here, so we have copious amounts of dandelions, which I actually think are quite pretty, especially when you whizz by them on the side of the roads, but they do play havoc with my allergies.

Our local news station published a 'natural weed killer' recipe that is eco-friendly and I of course was immediately skeptical and thought cynical thoughts about how all this 'earth friendly' 'green' and 'organic' stuff is just getting too trendy for words, and no-one really cares about the planet but they are all just slapping 'green' on stuff to sell it and all that...and then I thought that I'd just mix up half a batch of that weed killer stuff just to try and guess what....it worked! It worked like a charm. Within about 6 hours of applying it, most of the weeds were dried up and some had actually disappeared altogether, colour me happily surprised and a little less cynical.

I'm going to pass it on to all the other wanna-be gardeners out there, give it a try and let me know if it works for you. I will preface this by saying I only tried it on the weeds that were growing in between my patio stones and near the driveway...I have a feeling if you sprayed or poured it near your precious flowers and plants, it would kill them along with the weeds, so be forewarned.

Natural Weed Killer

4 Cups White Vinegar

1/4 Cup table salt

2 Tsp Liquid Dish Soap

Mix together (it will look a little weird). You can either put into a spray bottle and spray the weeds or pour directly on them. Big weeds may need a second dose.