I Am NOT Making This Up

Why do I have so much trouble with Ravelry?

Couple of days ago I decided to resolve, once and for all, my problems of getting on Ravelry.

I hate being confronted by a sudden request for a new password. Some websites seem to keep a record of previous passwords, and will not permit the use of previously used passwords. So, in an idle moment or two I play a game with myself of writing down possible passwords I might use in the future.

Tried to log on to Ravelry. Happily, Ravelry returned with my current, usable username. I confess I have had previous trouble with usernames, but since Ravelry was gratuitously offering me a username, I thought it wise to use their suggestion.

Ah, now, the password. Took a guess. Didn't work. On to password reset. Revelry rejected my first reset attempt with a weird message that my suggestion was already in use. So, on to the next password on my list of possibilities. Okay with that one. I wrote it all down in the notebook I am trying to keep of my login sites.

Two days later, we have been told that the City of Fountains patterns are available on Ravelry, so I try to go take a look. Ravelry accepts my username, but will not take the password. Frustrated, I try the password Ravelry rejected two days ago. Astonishment. It works.

Will it still work two days from now?

Not MY Mistake

They call it a "casting on" party, but that's really an easy part. Unless you miscount and do not have the exact number of stitches to begin with. Which was my first false start. My second false start was not reading the instructions for the I-Cord edge. I think the I-Cord edge is looking much better, but I still was planning to go to a "casting on" party.

Since I no longer drive at night, the afternoon "casting on" party at Yarn Social in Midtown Kansas City was going to be the only one available to me. I was watching the weather forecasts very carefully. I hadn't realized that the Yarn Barn over in Lawrence also would be hosting a "casting on" party, so I was a bit surprised to read an e-mail message that because of the predicted weather that event was cancelled. Lawrence is some 30 miles to the west of me, so I still had hopes that the afternoon event at Yarn Social was still on schedule.

I don't give up easily, held on to hope . . . alas, further e-mails came flying along the ether waves, Yarn Social was cancelling as well.

One good bit of news in flurry of e-mails was the information that a mistake had been discovered in the Droplet Lace Stitch section. What makes that good news is that I am not there yet -- still far from that section. I should be happy that someone else discovered the problem -- happy that it wasn't me.

Smugness Goeth Before a Fall

Oh, dang, I had about four inches before I discovered I was making a major mistake on the i-cord on each edge. No choice but to begin over again.

It's amazing how strong a tiny piece of fiber can be. I had used two short pieces of red yarn as markers. Tiny, tiny pieces of fiber I could hardly see had wrapped themselves around the strands, making it difficult to unravel. Finally had to get a sewing needle to break the marker yarn. Started over again. I should have known there was trouble ahead when I unpacked the kit and found FOUR sheets of instructions.

Okay, starting over again . . . cast on 66 stitches . . .

The Right Kind of Needles

It's amazing the difference the right needles can make with a knitting project. The yarn for the City of Fountains Scarf is -- well, the scarf describes the yarn as shimmering -- is indeed a chatoyant blue. So the right kind of needles for that color of yarn is not a reflecting green, especially not at night.

The only size 6 needles I had were an aluminum green. Not totally unusable during the daylight,  but totally unsatisfactory at night. So off to Momo's on Delaware in Leavenworth. I had hoped for a light color plastic, but what she had were medium dark wood.

The pattern has three differing sections, the first a checkerboard, the second an Arches Lace Stitch, and the third a Droplet Lace Stitch. Make two identical strips and put them together with the Kitchener Stitch. After the "Cast On" parties, maybe we'll finish with Kitchener parties.

Only one false start

So far, so good. I made only one false start on the City of Fountains Scarf. My late aunt who was my knitting mentor always admonished me to count . . . count . . . count. How could I have forgotten that sage advice?

After I established the accurate number of cast on stitches, everything was hunky-dory. Well, almost. It seems the edging is sort of a mock I-Cord, and the instructions for the two sides are different for the stitches in between. There are four pages of instructions. Count them, FOUR pages of instructions. I'll swear I read somewhere that the stitch that gets slipped to make the mock I-Cord is slipped purlwise. Now, there's an intriguing word . . . purl. Not pearl. But I digress. Ah, yes, here it is in ALL CAPS. No wonder I missed it. SLIP ALL STITCHES ARE IF TO PURL.

(Didn't I have at one time a writing coach who told me to always avoid AS IF?)

I'm so proud of myself for getting to about three inches with only one false start. What could possibly go wrong?

The Hardest Ever

This may be the most difficult piece of knitting I have yet attempted -- The City of Fountains Scarf. To quote from the creator, Cheryl Murray, "A celebration of the more than 200 iconic fountains of Kansas City. Bursting from their stone basins, jets of water fling sparkling droplets high in the air. Knitted in shades of shimmering blues, it's refreshing!"

Kits were available to members of the Sunflower Knitters Guild  https://www.sunflowerknittersguild.org/  prior to KITH (Knitting in the Heartland)   https://www.kithkc.com/  on April 17-19, 2020, in northern Johnson County.

The first reason I think this is a difficult project is because several "Cast on" parties have been scheduled. At which one presumes there will be someone who is expert in this pattern.

From the number of kits distributed at the morning meeting of SKG, I expect to see a lot of City of Fountains blue scarves. Wouldn't it be fun to have a group photo?

A New Decade

A New Year, a new decade, a new book about blogging. Written by Amy Lupold Bair. WordPress drove me crazy. Tumbler had its own perils. Blogger has been the less dense, which isn't saying much. I'll probably eventually delete this post, but in the meantime it lets Blogger know that I am still around.

Blogs Revisited

Dare I make a New Year's Resolution to resume blogging? Not without some further knowledge.