I fully intended to write about Fox Paws earlier this week — but, well, Fow Paws is treacherous and we were in no state for public appearances.
Knitting Fox Paws is like having a stormy love affair (or so I imagine, having never actually had a stormy love affair…). Altho with a love affair, I suppose you cannot stuff your cruel and uncooperative paramour into a knitting bag and go off to sulk in a corner with a bottle of wine and a pretty little obliging bit of lace…but now I am going all F. Scott Fitzgerald on you!
Knitting Fox Paws would best be done alone in a cave. However, I do not possess a lonely cave. In fact, at present I live in a house with 10 other people and 7 cats. It is a little distracting. So, I occasionally lose my concentration and make an error. I realize I am in error when something doesn’t line up with the rows below or I run out of stitches or have one too many stitches… something like that. But finding the actual error can range from “tough” to “practically impossible.” Usually, I just tink back until the error mysteriously vanishes. (Tinking back Fox Paws is a Herculean task that twists your brain and offers many possibilities for disaster)
Sunday night, after I spent an hour poking and scrabbling through the stitches and counting and re-counting and re-re-counting, I figured out that my error had occurred a couple of rows down — and that if I did not fix it, one of the toes of the 3-toe paw would be short. It would be ugly. (I freely admit that there are a couple of imperfections in my piece, but they are only slightly skewed bits and I can live with them). I knew I needed to fix the short toe.
So, the next day, I TOOK THE STITCHES OFF THE NEEDLE…yep, I said a little prayer and wiggled the needle out of the stitches! And then, I RIPPED BACK!
I ripped back 2 rows and said another little prayer and put the stitches back on the needle…and counted up to make sure all 169 stitches were present and accounted for.
Success! I re-knit the rows correctly — well except for one more small error that briefly demoralized me until I got it figured out and fixed (with a victorious “Ah ha!” — tho I was jumpy and overly cautious for the next couple of rows).
And the crazy thing is that I LOVE working on Fox Paws! It is fascinating and dramatic and dangerous and demanding and utterly enthralling. And so very, very beautiful.
So, given the opportunity, would I run away to a cave with my Fox Paws? It would be tempting! But, as it is, I will have to make do with trysts between loads of laundry, a quiet hour in the late evening….oh and if you happen see me out on the back deck with a little lace on my needles, um, don’t mention it to Fox Paws.