feh.

Last night was knitting night, and I gave myself the evening off and went. I've been wearing myself out lately, and I thought it would do me good to get out among nice people and relax.
I started a new swatch for the Feathery Lace Stole, this time with thicker yarn and smaller needles, and things were going much better. The other swatch really doesn't look as stupid in person as it does on the net, but this swatch was still better. The knitting felt less awkward, and I was loving the interactions of the colors.

This is the point where I'd normally put a picture and say "see how cool this is? Total love." or something like that. Well.
This guy came over to our large collection of knitters and started talking to us. There was the usual "Wow, that's really cool what you're all doing. I could never do that." "Yes you could." "No I couldn't." "We'll teach you if you want." that seems to be mandatory whenever anybody approaches a group of knitters. Then the guy said he's a photographer and would like to take pictures of us for his personal projects. He was cute and funny and seemed a bit tipsy, although he said it was just from coffee. Anyway, the whole thing was so entertaining, I totally forgot where I was in my pattern and messed up my knitting. Undid it, but messed it up again. Then when I went to undo it again, I dropped a stitch. As I was trying to recover that one, three more made the leap and disappeared into oblivion. At this point, I threw a total temper tantrum like a two-year-old, yelled "I give up!", whipped the needles out, and frogged the whole thing in like two seconds.
Of course, two more seconds later the remorse set in and I thought about how when everybody else screws up, they pass their knitting over to somebody with a clue and get it fixed. Oh no, not me.
Thus I have nothing to show you today. Even a big triple chocolate cookie and some very easy crocheting did nothing to soothe my spirit.
I've given some consideration to Sarah's comment two posts back about knitting vs. crochet and one not really being any fussier than the other. Sarah is wiser than I am by far and has been doing both crafts for much longer than I have, so she's probably right. But it may be the case that crochet just suits the way my brain is made better. You never have to worry about a whole bunch of your stitches committing suicide with crochet, for one thing. And it's certainly true that being able to follow a pattern is a useful skill and that following a pattern is harder than following the vision in your head, but for me, that's not even a comparison that can be made between crochet and knitting. With crochet, I just make stuff. I made one thing from a pattern once, but otherwise, I just make it up as I go along. With knitting, I can't do that. It's not even that I think of things to try to figure out how to do and then can't. I don't even get to that point. I'm a blank. I'm stumped. This pattern inspired me, so I decided to try it, but it wasn't like I could have just made something up instead. I just don't seem to be able to do that with knitting.
Anyway, it's not that I'm going to quit knitting and only crochet from now on. I still like the idea of knitting, and I'm sure that if I keep practicing, eventually I'll get good at it. I'm constantly amazed by the folks at knitting night--someone will ask one of the really amazing knitters how long she's been doing it, and nine times out of ten, the answer is three years or less. Also when I was knitting all the time, I was a lot better at it than I am now, even though I had just started. Lately all I've been doing is working and dyeing, and everything else has gotten clumsy from neglect. I need to find a better balance in my life. Meanwhile, perhaps I should stick to the totally mindless for knitting night, but I think I am going to break out the Kidsilk Haze and start this stole. Adventure calls.