Pink Fishnet Hell

The (w)hole pink fishnet debacle begain when I decided to take part in the Knitting Olympics. (This involves chosing a project, Casting on during the opening ceremonies of the actual Olympics -which I believe have something to do with sports, and casting off at the closing ceremonies)After much consideration, I decided my project should be fishnet stockings because tights are cool, yo. I spend some time waffling between 2 patterns; the Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation
and Knitty versions. I finally decide on Knitty because they are (famous last words) more challenging and I have yet to successfully finished a pair of socks let alone a toe up variety. Other challenges include 4 different stitch patterns which increase the possibility of fucking this up...4 fold especially since I am pretty much unable to follow a pattern all the way through. Really the SnB version would be a better choice for me however, in keeping with the spirit of the Knitting Olympics- I am up for the challenge.



It looks pretty lewd. I have to admit, I've gotten some pretty strange looks while working on this in public.

Challenge #1: getting the yarn. The patterns call for Cascade Fixation and Elann something something which are in essence the same yarn, containing 98.3 % cotton and 1.7% Elastic. The elastic is the important bit. Finding the yarn took a lot longer than I had anticipated. I had fully expected Romni to have an entire wall devoted to this sort of yarn, a virtual cornicopia of colour for my stocking making needs. I was mistaken. I head to the sock yarn section and find nothing, I circle the store several times and find it lacking in anything of the elastic variety. I ask a sales person, explaining what I need and why I need it and she proceeds to show me 8 different yarns that are in no way suitable for making stockings: including soy silk and bamboo yarn which runs around 22-24$ a skein. I thank her and try to slink away but she herds me downstairs to the sale section where I circle like a trapped goldfish for a few minutes until she turns her back and I hoof it out of there. I start to panic. If Romni doesn't have the yarn, will anybody? I jump on a bus an journey to a yarn shop where I have never been before (and will probably not return to due to the crabby customer service) and low and behold, they have it at 7$ a ball. The colour selection isn't the best so I choose 3 balls (better be safe) of a slightly varigated pink. Total 21$ plus tax, and 3 TTC tokens. (6$) for a grand total of 32$.

Challenge #2: The Cast on. I play with the yarn and different size needles until I get the right gauge and then I attempt the weird figure 8 style cast on. Not only did this take me 8 attempts to do this, but in the process of doing this, I realize that I actually knit 'wrong'. This is what happens when you teach yourself how to knot from a book. After so after relearning to knit, I go to the predetermined location (pub) for the opening ceremonies, and feel like I'm coming down with something. But it's nothing a couple of pints of Guinness won't fix. Speaking of Guinness, drunken knitting is bad. I lost a casein dpn (suspect someone stole it- one minute it was there, I turn my back, it disappears- we never did find it. Edit: it turns out it had fallen into a friend's bag. I still have to get it back from her) Continue to knit with one less needle, screw up pattern, don’t care keep knitting. I would like to mention that a room full of drunken knitters is a frightening thing.

Next day: sick as a dog. Possibly the plague(writing in fever induced point form) Continue knitting from the comfort of my bed. Get to heel. Instructions stupid. Seek online help, people keep telling me why to do it but not how. Stupid. Proceed anyway, get to the bit where I have to switch to straight needles, realize what a stupid idea this is, knit a few rows, realize I’ve screwed up the stitch pattern, unravel the thing, redo the heel several times, always looks the same. Decide I hate this pattern and try the SnB one which is really more me: 80’s/ Siouxsie Sioux versus, where as the Knitty one is quite baroque in a 'Best little Whorehouse in the Moulin Rouge kind of way'. They have lacing up the back. Lacing!Frankly even if I did finish them, I would never wear them.

In between waiting for a phone call, being sick and languishing in despair for several days, I work on the SnB stockings. But wasn't completely in love with them, Then I picked them up and realized that I was knitting them wrong and that they would probably look different if I did them correctly. Unraveled the whole thing and started again. Not only did I not finish them for the closing ceremonies, they are still not finished because I've realized that there is no way these things will actually fit me even though I did get the proper gauge.

So finally I decided to start again and that they should be socks.




Although at the moment they are just sock. Well they will be once I finish the ankle, but as I mentioned I can't really work on it in public because of it's resemblance to a lace penis warmer.

Pain Machine and the Osmonds.

I have been struggling to use the knitting machine of doom, however after consulting several library books, I have managed the not so easy tasks of casting on, knitting and picking up dropped stitches. I also have managed casting off with mixed results. Those results, being my blood mixed with yarn due to the fact that I impaled my finger on one of the 150 knitting needles which are in fact more like tiny latch hooks than needles. It was my own fault though, as I was more than a little absorbed in Inside the Osmonds while attempting this task.

Watching the end of the fine film, which was (quite obviously) made in Canada helped ease my pain a little.

I would have posted photos from this site but they are actually copyrighted by the osmonds so that people like myself don't use them for their own nefarious purposes.