Sit right back

And you'll hear a tale, a tale of some fateful knitting.

So this is what happened when I tried to cast on for birch. Well, mistake number one was not taking the time to learn the appropriate cast on. But I bit the bullet. I forged ahead and proceeded to do the long tail cast on. Well, I apparently underestimated how long that tail needs to be, I got to about 200 stitches, and had to stop, because the tail wasn't long enough. So then I had to stop, rip it out and cast on all those stitches, and I couldn't wait either, I had to try again right then and there. Part of that "never say die" attitude that I have when it comes to knitting. By the time that I had re-cast on all of the stitches, with the appropriate I proceeded to knit birch, with out stitch markers. I have heard of people knitting all sorts of fabulous lace with out using stitch markers and I have even done it myself, on a very similar design, Kiri, and I thought that I could repeat this. No, so I had to rip out all 299 stitches that I had cast on, only having knit like three rows. This time I decided to take a little time to research the cast on that the designer recommends. Then I learned that The lace cast on is just the knitted cast on so I did it, and I am on like the fourth repeat. I love the little leaves patterns and it is pleasing me to no end.

The sweater is a less romantic story. The first time I didn't cast on with the right needles. Then the next time that I did it I screwed up the ribbing. Then I did that again, and again. By the time that I had started to think about just letting the front not match the back, I cast on one mare time and the knitting fates granted me favor. With birch, we were just having a little fight, then we got a little help. The sweater, while we did work our problems out, and managed to get a long for a while, the sweater mis behaved (I got tired of it) and is been put in the bag of bad knitting. A problem with the sleeves also helped the sweater earn its lowly position.