I’ve never been one to shy away from public crafting. In fact, if my hands aren’t busy all the time, I basically just fuss and fidget and drive myself nuts. So, it’s no surprise that many of the folks at the fine coffee and food establishments I frequent are well enough acquainted with me to ask much more specific questions than “Is that called yarning?”
In fact, one barista was surprised when the sweater I’d been working on for some time wasn’t with me for a few weeks, when she knew it wasn’t finished. Well, there’s a good reason for that, I explained, as I was busy crocheting a doily. I messed up!
I don’t like messing up. I like going forward, not backward. Usually the errors are pretty minor, and I can just ignore them. But unfortunately, I was working on my dad’s very-nearly-black sweater on an overnight flight, and between the darkness and my delirium I decreased waaaaaaay too many stitches out of the armholes. Instead of being good and fixing it, I shoved the offending thing in a bag and there it has sat since that flight a month ago.
But today was a lovely afternoon (finally!) and a perfect time to just grit my teeth and do some frogging. So, armed with some caffeinated courage and with the sun on my back, I ripped out.
It wasn’t much. A measly 22 rows. But I’m so opposed to ever undoing anything that though it was so close to done, I put it down for a month. That’s just sad! It only took a few minutes – it honestly took longer to put in the lifeline (which is actually a size 1 fixed circular needle – best lifeline ever!). But judging by the face on the guy at the next table who definitely was not staring at what I was doing with a mixture of confusion and amazement, it was the most daring feat of crafting in public I have ever accomplished.
Spaghetti!
I wound the crinkly yarn back onto the skeins, tossed the whole thing back in my bag, and settled in for some nice, relaxing comfort knitting. Another pair of kid socks in Felici – I’d brought these out to the desert with me over the weekend, and they’re so close to done. I’ll polish those off, then get back to finishing that sweater. After all, now that the hard part is done, I can look forward to spending the next few lovely evenings with my favorite java jockeys and the simple pleasure of knitting in public.
