Numbers

I'm lousy at math. My dad started his work life as an accountant, so my lack of math skill might not be easily attributable to DNA. I don't think I had the talking Barbie that said, "Math is hard," so that may not give me a good excuse, either. I'll blame it on uninspired teachers - and I know for an absolute FACT that the reason I hate calculus is due to Sister Jean in 10th grade at St. John the Baptist, standing at the overhead projector, writing out undecipherable calculations, thinking she was explaining them to us, when all she was doing was scrawling numbers on the transparency and droning on and on about... well, who knows what she was going on about because she spoke in a monotone, glancing up at us over those reading glasses perched on her nose, and then she... Sorry... I digress....

Anyway, despite my distaste for math... Wait, that's not really true, either. I liked algebra and geometry; I liked the way that at the end of the problem, at the bottom of the page, there was one answer. So really, it's just that I'm bad at the basics. I can manage (mostly) to add reasonably okay without the use of my fingers (mostly), and I can dredge up some multiplication tables from the recesses of my grey matter, but I usually check my work with a calculator. Forget about subtraction and division, though. There are precious few instances where I'll do those equations off the top of my head. The few times I've tried, well, let's just say that one time I had to close down a checking account and open up a new one, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

So despite my lack of mathematical talent, I am a counter. I count the steps up the stairs and down the stairs (they're usually the same, but without a calculator, I can't always be sure). I count squares on the sidewalk, number of brush strokes through my hair, and the number of 'clunks' the pump makes when I'm filling the gas tank.

I especially count my stitches when I'm knitting, but that's no guarantee I'll come out with the right number at the end of the row or round. I think that one harks back to my first knitting project, which was to be a scarf made out of a maroon fun fur. (Yes, I know, never let a beginner learn with fun fur.... but that's another blog...) I thought I was getting the hang of this knitting thing, and must have been concentrating so much on the mechanics of the stitch that I forgot to count. I cast on 10 stitches, but next thing I know, I have something like 20 or 25. Rookie mistake, not paying attention to the first stitch that twisted around the needle, and adding in a couple of yarnovers for no good reason.

Well, I'm a smart cookie, I had taken a knitting lesson, I knew how to fix that: Just do some decreases! The next couple of rows, I did a k2tog or 2. Since I didn't know what caused the increase in the first place, this had the effect of slowing down - but not stopping - the increases. By the time I had managed to get back down to 10 stitches, I had a lumpy thing about 25" long. I had managed to put most of the increases on only one side, so it looked like a snake that had just had a hamster for lunch. The Yarn Harlot talks about 'knitterly denial' - well, I learned that one very early on.

Anyway, I eventually figured out what I was doing wrong with that first stitch and with the random acts of yarnovers, and have been counting stitches ever since. I do it, but I'm not overly good at that, either. I have been known to go from 39 to 30, 70 to 75, and don't even talk about what happens when I cross the 100 line.

All this is to explain why, in the past 2 days, I frogged the lace section of two hats. You wouldn't think that counting up to 6 (for a 6-stitch repeat) would be that challenging. Trust me, it's harder than it looks. One of the hats looks okay with the pattern a little off, so I left it alone; for the second hat, I started using stitch markers (yes, for a 6-stitch pattern - get off my case, will ya?) and it looks really nice. For the third hat, I branched out into a different pattern and, thinking it was easier, went back to that counting thing. I had to frog it twice until I started using markers again. *sigh* It's much bettah now.

First two hats are done; third one is almost ready for decreases. Photos when I download them (they'll be in Ravelry, too). These are for you, S.