When (Kn)It Masters You

One of my favorite Bible verses is in Genesis. It's in chapter 4 when God is talking to Cain about his anger at Able and the importance of doing what is right. He follows with, "But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

I think what fascinates me about this verse is the concept of sin as alive... crouching, waiting, desiring to "have" me. It's a powerful image and can also be a hard concept to grasp. I've discussed this verse several times with my boys, usually using something they can relate to for comparison. For example, after we saw The Lord of the Rings, we talked about the power of the ring, of evil, and it's desire to own the bearer's soul. The strength Frodo had to summon to overcome the weight of the ring... to master it.... etc., etc.

Now, the only reason I share this, is because this verse, this concept, came alive and bolted through my entire being last night as I sat here trying to kitchener stitch the back neckband on my Minimalist Cardigan just one. more. time.

I pulled it out around 10:00 last night just to weave in a few last ends before washing and blocking it today. I had already seamed the shoulders and grafted the neckline (don't ask why I did this before blocking) but I noticed that the kitchener I did was lame... no kitchener at all really, just a bumpy seam. This would never do. No. I should frog and re-seam. Again. Hmmm... okay one more time. Now the whole time I'm thinking, "If this doesn't work, I'm going to bed and saving it for tomorrow. There's no way this thing is keeping me up all night! No, I'm going to win." As this continued, it soon eventually finally painfully became clear that the sweater, in no uncertain terms, had me.

I finally got the kitchener looking good and finished up the seam only to realize that the first 4 or 5 stitches were bumpy. No biggy, I have long hair... no one will ever see. But I couldn't stop thinking about the person sitting behind me in church staring at the bumpy seam. No matter how much I tried to get past this image, it was useless. I had to get it right and it would only take one more time.

Anyway, while I may have eventually mastered the kitchener stitch, I also learned that a kitchener stitch done with unraveling yarn in the wee morning hours is going to come with it's own set of problems... so I guess we'll just have to call this one a tie (not counting loss of sleep or sanity on my part).

On to blocking... I don't think I've actually blocked that many things in the past. I have a nice blocking board and know I've used it a few times... but I don't recall a similar experience to this before. I put my cardigan in the basin with some Soak, hoping it would block out a wee bit since it threatened to be a bit small. (I'm not one to measure as I go... nah, I just knit a mini-swatch and go for it.) After the suggested 15 minutes I pulled out wet, limp cardigan pieces that was stretching out by inches in every direction. Trying to reserve the welling panic for any potential final disaster, I carefully squished the pieces into the appropriate measurements (but couldn't help recall that stretching not squishing had always been a part of this process before).

Clinging to hope, I left it to dry avoiding the knowledge that the time required for it to dry was going to undoubtedly exceed my limits on patience. I returned after a few hours of schooling... still not panicking since I know that I possess the ultimate weapon of victory in the laundry room (or more technically, the garage) sitting right next to my washer and if the sweater chooses not to return to its designated size, I will not hold back. In the meanwhile I gave it some drying assistance with my hairdryer. (I can be quite resourceful when necessary.)

It still seem limp... but it's also still damp. Is this normal? Will it fluff back to life upon drying completely? The yarn is Karabella Aurora 8 superwash merino. Did I Soak all the life out of it? I asked Julie, the only person I know who has used this yarn, but she was unable to advise me. Go ahead ask her why. Oy.

On a side note, things are off to a much better start this week. In order to assert his teenage right of timely arrival for school (hee hee hee I'm still laughing about Friday), 15 yo was extra careful to double check his alarm last night but apparently accidentally reset the time. He was up, showered and ready to go by 2:45 AM before he realized it was still pretty dark out. We're hoping the whole sports thing pans out for him.

And me... I was fortunate that my calendar had fallen to the ground because when I bent over to pick it up at 7:38 this morning, I caught sight of a doctor's appointment I had at 8:00 across town. Yep... it's a whole new week.