She’s Come Undone

Sue’s world has been really unravelling lately. 

But it is fairer to say that she has been unravelling her world, or at least unravelling her crocheting, for this is what I saw the other night after 10pm.

Sue has crocheted a number of afghans over the past five years, and they have usually been fairly advanced patterns. But they haven't been as advanced as the weaves in the Celtic Cable project that she chose this time.

Beautiful, eh? But difficult. She chose it not just for its looks but also to learn new stitches — seven new ones.

Learning, she was, and she got through the first panel (below) or set of stitches or weaves with a little patience and perseverance. 

But then came the extra-difficult middle section comprising 11 different rows involving 3 different repeated rows of stitches weaving together.

Without describing it in blow-by-blow detail, largely because it is beyond me but also because it is not necessary for this post, here is the gist of it.

She had to rip out some of her work on seven different occasions for a total of 17 rows of 158 stiches each. In all she unravelled 17 rows, the longest two being 7 and 6 rows. That's a lot of unravelling.

It was the last unravelling that left me to take that first photo sometime after 10 o'clock that night. What a mess of wool I saw as I stumbled into the room as she tried to unravel the unravelling which I guess could be termed the ravelling by that time. So, she was now unravelling the resultant mess of the unravelling. Sheesh!

As you can tell (again referring back to the first photo in this post) she had already been trying to sort the topsy-turvy wool for some time. Since she had enough other wool for the project, I suggested that she just cut her losses and begin with a new skein.

Alas, my lovely wife can been an extremely stubborn determined person, and she was having none of it. While she always precedes me to bed by an hour or two, I left her to it that night. I dozed off in my chair, but when I stirred just before midnight, I saw that she had finally retired. 

In the morning, Sue capitulated by doing some excising but also saving much of the wool.

She wrapped the reminder into this tight ball on the right.

As I sit and type this on Saturday morning, she only has a row and a half to complete of these damnable 11 rows. Of course, she will have completed them long before I post this tomorrow, Sunday, morning. From there, she must repeat the first panel that I showed three image above, after which there is a border-edging to be done.

At 1:13pm, Sue announced that she had finished that dadgummed section. It wasn't exactly a victory shout but more of a gigantic and tired sigh of relief.

As you can gather, the finished product won't be ready anytime soon, but it should go much easier than this middle section, for it is a repeat of the first panel.

Lagniappe: Thankfully, Lacey stayed away from the wool, unlike the cat of this old woman.