Nearly There

Hello, crafty and sundry!

I’ve been not that knitty lately. Instead, I’ve been hunkering down and playing Minecraft, and working on the Decade of Malevolence contest for Evil Genius Online. I’m a huge fan of the original Evil Genius, so I’ve been playing that a bit too while grinding for the competition. I’m still debating whether or not I want to make a mad dash to get into the top 10 with my husband, but we’ll see.

It’s slightly frustrating that I’ve not been knitty, because I am so freaking close to being done with this top. I’ve only got a few more rows to hit a length that will please me, and then finishing off the sleeves. Smallhausen has confirmed that she wants short sleeves, so I’ll probably be able to finish those off with the super-quickness. Yanno, of I can judge myself to pick up my needles and get grinding through the last little bits!

Still, I’m happy, because like in every piece I have done so far, I’ve learned something new. For example, my habit of crossing colours to secure them in place? Probably a great thing to do in colourwork sections, but not so great when you’re working rows in the round. As you can see from the pictures below, I ended up with a weird internal seam, and it wasn’t terrible smooth to look at on the outside either It’s not a big deal — it’s a seam on the side, and I can always claim that it’s just another one of those classy signs of something being homemade… right?

One of my clever friends suggested that for fastenings, one should consider using snaps even when the pattern calls for a button. Smallhausen at four and a half isn’t a fan of buttons, but doesn’t have an issue with snaps. So the plan is to affix a snap, but sew a button over the snap so it looks like it’s buttoned. Pretty clever, non? Of course, that requires me to manage to sew it all on without screwing it up, but I’m feeling fairly confident. Which means I probably will screw it up, ha ha. But that’s okay — we can only learn by making mistakes.

I’m also, slowly, trying to teach myself how to knit right-handed. I have no intention of switching hands as my default mode of knitting, but I wouldn’t mind knowing the rudiments with the wrong-right hand in case friends want help with anything. Smallhausen keeps saying she’d like to learn how to knit, so I’d bought the red and yellow pair of children’s needles for her to work on. Little Miss Perfectionist hasn’t conceptualized how to knit in her head yet, so I’ve got them spare on my desk. I hadn’t really thought about how them being different colours is a huge boon in learning how to knit, but it’s certainly been useful for me in trying to figure this out backwards-rightwards. It’s ridiculously awkward, because I am completely left dominant; I can only use a mouse and chopsticks better with my right hand. So there is absolutely no way I could have picked it up right-handed first in my opinion. I’m pleased I can do knit stitch now with some accuracy, but it’s really rather uncomfortable on the wrists due to being the wrong motion set.

Past that, thinking a lot about pies and cakes — most specifically, cheesecakes. I’ve never made one before, and now that I have a proper-sized pan, I will be trying a few recipes here and there until I find one that is signature enough. I’ve got any number of recipe ideas from friends, so we’ll see what works out the best. And in the interim? Lots of cheesecake is a very very good thing to me.

<3