Life Line

I'm still about - on earth that is, not so much in cyberspace.  Thank you for checking on me.  Sorry that I haven't responded to emails.  It has been busy... and that won't be changing any time soon.  We began homeschooling one of the kids this year.  BIG adjustment for me.  It's going well and I am happy that we are doing it, but my creative pursuits have definitely taken a hit...

There hasn't been much time for tatting - my brain can't keep up with language arts and social studies etc, AS WELL AS, ds, -, --, and RW.  All I have to show is what I WAS working on before I came to care about prepositions, pronouns and the American Revolution...

Above is progress I had made on testing a tatting pattern I am attempting to write up.  And below is an unfinished motif - I BELIEVE it is part of a vintage pattern, but I wouldn't swear to it.  If I ever find the pattern, maybe it will be finished...

Knitting has been my friend lately.  I still have a bee in my bonnet to make some socks for my dad and the pattern is simple enough that I am able to work on it as I wait... and prod... and wait some more... for homeschool work to be completed.

Unfortunately, not so simple that I didn't make a mistake while shaping the heel.  I'm such a newbie at knitting that I can't immediately tell where my mistakes occur and things started to careen out of control as I began ripping back.  I thought all might well be lost and reminisced lovingly about how hard it is to retro-tat and how apparent a mistake can be in a tatted piece (SOMETIMES, that is...).  You're never going to see a piece of tatting unravel and return to a pile of crinkly thread before your eyes as you attempt to fix an error and figure out WHERE you are in the pattern!

I put the ever shortening sock aside and scoured the internet for help.  That's when I found JL Yarnworks' post about lifelines.  THANK GOODNESS!

I'm happy to say that adding a lifeline has put me back on track and I didn't lose anymore sock than the heel flap.  I'm going to take Jackie's advice and keep my lifeline in as I continue knitting in case I find myself in water over my head again...