Sunday, February 05, 2006

there's a van with a cat in it


Apparently that's the super-secret British spy way of saying "Danger Will Robinson! Abort mission!" If only I had listened. So here's my nugget of advice gleaned from a weekend of knitting in front of the tube: don't try to design a sweater while watching dramatic British spy shows on TV (or on the laptop, which is how we do it around here).

The sad outcome was, I cast on too many stitches for the front closure, Helen got killed thanks to managerial incompetence, and then I knitted several more inches of whole-sweater-in-the-round, oblivious to the oversized front. In fact, I didn't even notice until this afternoon as I was blithely knitting in the car on the way home from a quick winter jaunt to the beach, and the stitches weren't adding up.

Helen was one of my favorite characters from Episode 1 of MI-5, the aforementioned dramatic British spy show, and they went and killed her off right at the incredibly tense climax of Episode 2. They do things differently over there in England on the teevee. Do you cable-having people get this show on BBC America? Half the reason we have Netflix is so that I can get British television. I don't know what the other half the reason is, you'd have to ask HWWLLB.

Any rate, the MI-5 is bad for my knitting, it's too engrossing. Also, my hands get all trembly while watching it (I told you it's dramatic!), and I think the tension in my knitting increases. I think I could safely frog while watching it though, and goodness knows I have plenty of that to do now. Thanks a lot, BBC!

7 comments:

  1. Well, now you know. Maybe it's just because you were knitting something you'd never done before? Maybe you could knit socks and watch that show?? :-)

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  2. I can't decide which is more shocking, the revelation that you like British spy dramas ... or that you have stopped knitting socks. I on the other hand have always maintained that I love britsh television, bad teeth and all. (PS ... don't tell my grandmother that guy on Are you Being Served? is gay).

    So, has the world flipped on it's axis and you are kntting sweaters and making up patterns, while I have fallen in the black whole who's name is "sock?" (PS ... I rethought it and if boobs are funny...so are penises, then we're all even) OR, Does it mean that you do have a freaky funny side that can't rear it's head when arguing feminist politics?

    You decide....

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  3. oh girl, i haven't stopped knitting socks, i have two pairs i'm concocting in my head right now and just got some knit picks "sock landscapes" yarn in the mail on friday.

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  4. While I'm pretty good at knitting while watching (TV), I was devastated to learn that I couldn't knit and ride (in the car). Ugh. Carsick. Really, it shouldn't be that way.

    Sorry about that sweater. Do I hear a frog over there?

    Rib-bit. Rib-bit.

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  5. Yeah, I've done knitting like that too and learned that I should just have "simple" projects for those occasions.
    Knit on!

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  6. Oh my... that sounds like such an exciting show. I love British TV and really miss it... I really got into '55 Degrees North' a few months ago but they canned it shortly after it started.
    I've given up watching TV while I knit for precisely that reason. My one concession to 'entertainment' while I knit is listening to audio books - I'm listening to the biography of Captain Kidd at the moment, which is much more interesting than you might think.
    Thank you so much for the blocking tips - you're a star!

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  7. ms. pea...

    here is the cool mushroom book

    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0961079800/sr=1-1/qid=1139343156/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-6771389-3371135?%5Fencoding=UTF8

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