Sad End of a Project and Art Ed Knitting

Before the tragedy befell my Mossy Cardi

The blog has been a bit quiet for a number of reason - mostly day job related.  But I hit something of a rough patch in my knitting too.  I pulled out the Mossy Cardi to take up my knitting where I left off in early fall.  I was knitting along, dividing for armholes, decreasing for neckline shaping and I picked up my sweater to admire it and found a great big honking mistake.  Actually a hole - perhaps even a moth hole.  Of course it is in a truly obnoxious place - center lower back - as though I am sprouting a tail and need a place for it to come through.  I have not seen any other evidence of same, but I am up against a decision.

1. Duplicate stitch over said hole, unravel excess yarn  & carry on.  Hope mend doesn't show.

2. Unravel sweater to hole & reknit, watching carefully for 'evidence.'

3. Unravel entire sweater, watching carefully for 'evidence,' wash all yarn and decide which sweater I want to knit. 

4. Glare at the offending sweater and wish it would get better by itself.  This has so far been my ploy.  Sadly, it is not working.

On a more positive note, I will be joining my colleague Barbara in her Art Ed class as we teach a dozen or so future elementary teachers (and a couple of future art teachers) to knit.  We are using a super simple hand warmers pattern, First Fingerless Mitts [Rav link].  All you really do is knit a rectangle and sew it up, leaving a thumbhole.  But for a begininng knitting project, it's about right.  I prefer to knit a wee thumb, but this time it's not really about me.

Last evening, Barbara and I went to a chain crafts shop to purchase yarn.  We got a nice mix of colors in a collection of tweeds & soloids.  I bought myself some Lion Brand Amazing as my class samples.  'Amazing' is Lion Brand's wool-acrylic color change yarn.  I don't have the ball band with me, so I can't tell you the color name and number, but it is a lovely orange-copper-red-gold combination that I like very much.  I've knit about 2 inches of garter stitch and it looks lovely.  I like the fact that they won't be 'matchy-matchy' though I'm not sure our students will appreciate it nearly as much.  After my short lecture on the history of knitting and looking at a few samples, casting on begins tomorrow.