Back to normal

To my usual rants, I mean, not that the situation concerning students' protests et al. settled in any way. I'm contemplating about setting up a new blog to deal with politics since it seems to me that it just doesn't fit in here. My Paperback Life was planned to be exactly what the title says – cheap and disposable.* Politics and bitching about politics just doesn't fit in.

So, I did some knitting lately. I promised a sweater to Olga which is nearly finished and it seems that I'll have just enough yarn. It's the same thing as I made for Kristina although the yarn dyed differentlydue to the random factor inherent to the dyeing technology ** but the aurora borealis effect is preserved. The good thing is that this design needs the carryalong which has been sitting in my stash almost ever since and for which I didn't have any use. Both recipients love it so it's a good deal.
I almost finished another sweater – I madly love my blue sweater in linen/whoknowswhat blend. I wanted to make a similar one with slight alterations in the design concerning the drawstring through the sleeves.
I fully finished yet another sweater in yarns so good that one could eat them – silk/angora/wool blend for most of it, wool/angora for the striped bits.

But.....

Houston, we have a problem.The white sweater is my well-worn favourite which is not important, the important thing is that it fits well.

For those who are not sure what am I talking about, the tape measure shows the good lenght of the sleeves. It doesn't look that straight but it is, sort of. Yes, the blue one needed some eight rows to be done with and the grey one was entirely finished***. Upon trying them on, I found that (1) blue has sleeves too short (2) grey has sleeves too long, one of which damn-way-too-long. Back to the armpits, then. I am anal about details, I know it. I don't mind ripping and redoing three-quarters of a garment because there's a wrong stitch somewhere there. I do't mind reknittng the whole thing when there's a cable crossed the wrong way on row 6. To be totally frank, I might ignore it at a thing done for someone else who woldn't be able to find the mistake but were the thing intended for my own use, I might not be able to live with it. In neither case, a sleeve 15cm longer would be acceptable.

Someone on Ravelry remarked when I whined about ripping the whole sweater that grew after dipping in the water (redoing that one is the next task after fixing the abovementioned disasters) that I should accept it as a possibility to spend my time working with beautiful yarns.

Speaking of growing sweaters, I'm working on a pattern called Monet's garden. Most of the thing is made of the same yarn as the growing sweater. I'm past the armpits and I'm trying to work the increases into the foliage patterns so there's lots of working with beautiful yarns. The same bits, for that matter, but I like more and more how is it turning out.

And, yes, there' a yellow floor here. It is a bit less ugly than what it looks like on the pictures.

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*Just the other day I spotted two volumes of essays on Florentine humanism and neoplatonism, printed on a cheap paper, bound in cheap paper, around 80 euros each. Bear this on mind when dealing with the paperbackiness of this place. Just in case.

**so called Boil the balls alive.

***not the ends. I have more than one thing with hanging threads because the little finishing details just somehow don't get finished. I can wear my precious garment and tuck the loose thread somewhere inside so why bother.