Oh my freaking God, I finally finished the lime green basketweave scarf!!!
All praise the gloriousity that is my lime green basketweave scarf!!!
This yarn…it…tried to kill me, honestly. I’ve had it for EVER and this is the third time I’ve tried to knit something with it. It’s just so fussy, so splitty, and it’s 100% cotton, so it doesn’t glide like your cheap acrylics. It’s a bitch, plain and simple, and so unforgiving of any mistakes.
This yarn, it kicks my ass.
Oh, but it’s pretty! It’s oh so pretty and bright and vibrant! And so full of cottony goodness! So I fought and I fussed and I missed busses to stop and carefully undo six rows of what I had thought to be meticulous knitting and purling, and do it up all over again. I had already knit a third of a scarf in a seed stitch pattern, with nifty little bobbles running up the side in sets of three. But again, so unforgiving! – and the itty bitty flaws of the knitter I was six months ago drove me up the wall until I finally undid it all and wrapped it up to wrestle with again another day.
And this time, dammit, I was good enough and focused enough to take the most unforgiving (but so pretty) yarn and neatly loop it together in such a way as to produce a pretty fantastic scarf.
Go me!
*Gives finger to yarn* Take that, bitch! Think you’re tough? I bought your ass in BLUE! That’s right, a magnificent cyan! Coming soon, yo.
800 Miles 
teeni said,
September 23, 2008 at 12:25 am
Oh yeah, cotton is sooo much harder to work with than acrylic. It just doesn’t have that “glide.” But your scarf is beautiful! Great work and I love the color!
kaylee said,
September 23, 2008 at 1:48 am
oh you gave that a great ass kicking back 🙂
stephanie parnell said,
September 23, 2008 at 11:35 am
that is so beautiful!!
2lazydogs said,
September 23, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Holy awesomeness! That is one magnificent scarf.
I refuse to use cotton. Oh no, not gonna struggle with that bitch (except when crocheting children’s sweaters – it’s a bit more forgiving). I mostly prefer the ease of the acrylic/mohair/wool/boucle – anything but stiffy cotton. I just pounded out 3 scarves last weekend. Oy. Me fingers ache. I shall post pics soon to show off their knitted glory.
CuriousC said,
September 23, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Gloriosity! Did you ride the bus forever until it was done? I’m getting that image… congrats – it looks mahvelous.
birdpress said,
September 23, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Beautiful! I want it!
Ginny said,
September 24, 2008 at 5:13 am
Ooooh, that is lovely. Not as lovely as mine….(pictures are coming, I promise.)
JavaQueen said,
September 24, 2008 at 6:34 am
Ha! Ha! You are hilarious, you sure showed that yarn! Whoot! You are lucky you can back-track when you make a mistake. I have to start over because I don’t know how to get the knitting back on once I’ve taken it off the needles. I LOVE the pattern here. I wish we lived close so you could show me how to do that. I only know the basic. I will take a pic of mine, it should be done tonight. I am the type of person that will only learn from watching someone else. Very visual learner 😉
Pearly said,
September 24, 2008 at 8:49 am
Damn, that is a wonderful scarf. Can you knit a thneed?
Emerald said,
September 24, 2008 at 4:41 pm
@ Teeni: Thanks, and yeah it was a pain in the ass, that yarn! I’d get halfway through a project and then find an itty bitty mistake…curses!
@ Kaylee: I even did a victory dance 😉
@ Stephanie: Hehe, thanks, I think so too. I kept stopping after every block to stop and admire, like I wasn’t the one looking at it the whole time.
@ 2lazydogs: Holy crap, three scarves in one weekend?! That is amazing, no wonder your fingers ache. Go you!
@ CuriousC: No, I wasn’t yet on the bus when that happened. I just stood in the middle of the station with my knitting about three inches from my eyes as I carefully undid four rows. I must have looked like some weird old lady, but meh…that’s the city for you, weirdo’s don’t stick out that much 😉
@ Birdpress: It’s up for grabs! Scarves are $30, plus $5 for shipping. If you’re interested, just shoot me an email at raspberrykoala@hotmail.com and I can send you a PayPal invoice (you don’t even need PayPal for it to work, I *LOVE* technology!) And then it’s yours! Gloriously yours!
@ Ginny: Yours is pretty fabulous if I do say so myself! I look forward to the pictures 😀
@ JavaQueen: Stay tuned for instructional videos when raspberrykoala.com launches! I totally get you, that’s why I’m putting out some how-to’s.
@ Pearly: Oh God, I totally want to now! I saw a google image of an attempted thneed…it wasn’t very pretty. It was a “Ugh, I messed THIS one up” sort of knitty post and yes…it looks like it’s a difficult project. Must achieve at some point in the future!
talea said,
September 25, 2008 at 2:55 am
What the hell ass is a thneed?
Billy said,
September 25, 2008 at 7:24 pm
Damn right! Beat the Hell out of that yarn/cotton stuff! That looks awesome by the way.
Are you going to be selling more scarves? ‘Cause I now live in the coldest place on the planet and I’m pretty sure other planets too.
Billy said,
September 25, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Oh, and I need to find a Yo Gabba Gabba sweater that fits me. STAT!
kaylee said,
September 26, 2008 at 12:21 am
i am shooting you an email ok?
romi41 said,
September 26, 2008 at 1:35 am
You know even if you hadn’t described how tough that yarn is to work with, I would have been so amazed by the meticulousness of each little square, it’s magnificent! (so magnificent in fact that it looks like it was produced by the delicate little hands of children working in a factory…but it was all you, awesome! 😉 )
And PS Billy: you SO have to get Emerald to hook you up with a scarf; I bought that sexy purple one she posted a few weeks ago, and I get to pick it up next week…yay…yay…YAY! 🙂
(and yo Em I can’t wait to see you and Talea, if only for a quick stop! 🙂 )
duffboy said,
September 26, 2008 at 1:50 am
Rock on with your bad (bad as in “good”) knitting self!
talea said,
September 26, 2008 at 3:00 am
I don’t know why, but I feel the need to scream, “I can knit too! Me too! Praise me! I’m good at it!”
Okay. I’ll go now.
Emerald said,
September 26, 2008 at 2:35 pm
@ Talea: Don’t worry, I had to google it too. It’s a Dr. Seuss thing.
@ Billy: I sure will be selling more scarves! Hopefully to the point of being able to contribute to rent down south (stupid federal laws…). If you’re in need of a man-scarf let me know if you’ve got any particular sort of preference and I can whip one up. I can’t wait to knit Josh a bunch of scarves for his first Canadian winter when we move back up north 😛
@ Kaylee: Sure thing!
@ Romi: Thanks! It is sort of amazing, that’s the best part of knitting. You get to a certain point and then look at your work and go “Holy Shiznat, *I* did that!” It’s pretty gratifying. And I can’t wait to see you again too! I was just telling Josh the other night how it’s weird that we’ve technically only met once and it was forever ago, but I feel like I see you every day! Go blog power, go!
@ Duffboy: Rocking indeed! Oh snap, I should so have a rocking background music for the instructional videos. I did mod-podge to Ami Winehouse, what do you think of an all-request hour? Baking to Back in Black, yes!!!
@ Talea: You can knit too! And quite fabulously! I will so pimp your stuff on raspberrykoala.com, we shall make plans!
joanharvest said,
September 26, 2008 at 10:59 pm
I can imagine that cotton is a bitch to knit with. The scarf came out awesome though.
I have these teeni weeni socks about 2 inches long that some old lady knitted with sewing thread and sewing needles. They must have been made for a doll or a teeni weeni person. My big fat fingers can barely hold tiny sewing needles never mind knit with them. They were knitted in 1861. Actually, I don’t have them my wasband does but they are cool.
I can’t wait to see your website.
David said,
September 27, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Very nice! Congratulations on your accomplishment. Green is SO your color eh?
Pearly said,
September 27, 2008 at 7:38 pm
Thneeds are the items made from the Truffala Trees in the Lorax. A versatile one piece with random appendages. Everyone needs a thneed. Of course, that’s how the Lorax’s land is depleted, so now we must only make synthetic thneeds.
Peter Parkour said,
September 27, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Very pretty. 🙂 On another note, I just tried e-mailing you, but it didn’t go through for some reason. Can you drop me a line? Please and thank you. 😉
Peter Parkour said,
September 28, 2008 at 8:44 am
Thanks for getting back to me in such a timely manner. I tried again, and failed again. 😦 Is there another address to try? The one you sent is the same one I tried the first time. Not sure what’s going on there. 😕 Dang it. The auto responder is giving me an error code, but I already feel bad enough just leaving this message. 😐
A Very Crafty Update « 800 Miles said,
November 10, 2008 at 3:19 am
[…] That miserable cotton yarn that turned out so pretty but wreaked havoc on my poor fingers? Yeah, that one. Well someone at work bought it to give as a Christmas gift! He just so happened to be looking for […]