So, this evening I was home alone – an evening with a nice
adventure movie and my knitting.  I had
chosen Jules Verne’s The Mysterious
Island for my movie and (somewhat reluctantly) a triangular gusset in moss
stitch for my knitting.

I heave great sighs when I have to knit a triangle.  They are quite useful in clothing design, but
kind of mathematically fiddledy to knit

Figuring the height (up the middle) so that the sides fit
the hole in the sleeve where the gusset is to go – well, that’s a-squared plus
b-squared equals c-squared at work.  Then
there is gauge and working out the decreases so that the slant is right.  And making it all fit in the 4-row moss
stitch pattern so the decreases lie there inconspicuously. 

And then knitting fairly short rows of moss stitch is not
particularly exciting – but I had to keep attending to it since on the right
side one knits the purls and purls the knits, while on the wrong side one knits
the knits and purls the purls.  And I had
to measure the piece frequently so I would be sure to do the decreases at
regular intervals.

Y-A-W-N.

And all the while on the TV screen there are pirates and
shooting and sword-play and a brilliant madman and stolen kisses and more
pirates and a hot-air balloon crash and a nuclear bomb and giant insects and a
giant rat and a lot of giant spiders and a treasure chest and a really, really
big snake and more pirates and shooting again and huge tentacles coming out of
the water and an exploding ship and a volcano.

And I am fastidiously K1-P1-K1-P1-ing.  Stopping to measure.  Double-checking which side I am on so that I
don’t knit purls when I should be purling purls.  And by the end of the movie – when the good
guys are sailing off into the sunset, I have a tidy-looking half triangle about
5 inches tall. 

So, tomorrow night, I get to put on another adventure movie
(maybe Blackbeard if I can face more
pirates) and knit-purl-knit-purl the rest of the triangle.  And then make another triangle for the other
sleeve.  I might need 2 movies.