Entrelac might blow

I always think I’m ready to leave town and yet on the day of departure I am still always in frenzy.  Today was supposed to be one of the better departure days …we didn’t leave the house until 6 pm.  Plenty of time to get ready to go, right?  Wrong.  Somehow the day still got away from me.  Part of it was a surprise visit from Duke Energy to put a new gas meter on the house which required them coming in to shut off all the gas and then coming back in to relight everything.  Part of it was a quick lunch with a friend that turned out not to be so quick (note to self…do not go to have a quick lunch at a small diner that employs one person to take care of the lunch crowd…better yet, don’t go to lunch on a day you are leaving town).  Part of it was the arrival of new items from The Alpaca Yarn company (the Forest Path Stole pattern and Suri Elegance Yarn) that just “HAD” to be put up on the website today.  Lastly, part of it was the darn Forest Path Shawl itself. 

Yes, the lovely Forest Path Shawl.  I got the yarn and pattern late yesterday and wanted to get it on the needles and started enough to be able to knit on the plane.  Twenty rows of seed stitch with yarn that has 875 yards to 100 grams (can you say THIN?) on size two needles, no problem.  Did I mention this is entrelac?  Did I mention this is my first attempt at entrelac?  No worries mate, I am now an “advanced knitter” right?  Wrong again.  How can one possibly be an “advanced” knitter when one does not know the right side from the wrong side?  Yes my friends, I believe this was my problem.  When going from the first triangle to the second I somehow lost my mind and forgot which side was the right side.  I am still not entirely sure this is the true explanation for my stupidity, but when I started the second triangle with my new orientation the directions sure enough worked out.  I am still not sure this is the correct explanation for my futility due to the fact that I began the new triangle so many times that I may have very well preformed some voodoo that allowed me to move on.  By the time we were ready to leave, I had wasted a couple of hours total on this endeavor and was not yet at a place where I could easily knit on a plane.  Thus the reason for this post…I cannot possibly knit with black yarn on size two (slick metal) needles on a dark plane on a pattern that I have already screwed up mega multiple times.  Hrrph!