Moving on or the maths add up

My dithering over whether to make the drive to Long Beach for TNNA finally got a nix.

Going to the show when it is in San Diego is a no-brainer, justifying the expense when it is somewhere else is a bit tough. I'm banking more designs than I'm selling and I'm not banking as many designs as I would like.

Budget issues that mean I'm not starting my master's this month also mean the expense of gas, lodging and other incidentals are tough to justify. So I'm staying home and not going to the ball.

The Russian grafting solution was a better choice than the other, more constraining, choices but the flexibility of the grafting was a tad too flexible once the form was stuffed. Very much a be careful what you wish for and/or some solutions just create other problems.

I was a little concerned about grafting the last few stitches was going to work out when the stitches are effectively parallel in their orientation. What worked for me was to use two circs and only moving a few of the TBG (To be grafted) stitches onto the working portion of the needles as needed.

That worked brilliantly so any concerns about how this would or wouldn't work with stitches that can't all be positioned as the lesson plays out are out the window. It works, it's a bit fiddley but it works and it is worth it.

I decided to over stitch the graft edges with blanket stitch embroidery. It sharpened the lines and also helped to close the gaps that resulted from the short row extensions.

Those extensions, btw, are worked without wrapping of any sort. In all the years (and there are many) I've been doing this sort of stuff I've yet to find a good fill the gap solution for this kind of use for short rows.

After sharpening the edges with the embroidery, I "tufted" the centres of the modules with a bit of perle cotton to further define the diamonds within the extended pentagons.

I'm very happy with the result and I already have the long planned but not up to now cast on for soccer ball polyhedron.

And am I back to the mittens and other cold clime projects?

Yes and no, the yarns and needles are back in the WIP bag. My notes on the Franken-mitts have been updated.

But I'm being a tad distracted by the idea of knitted pin cushions as I stumbled upon the Interweave Press/Piecework magazine competition for Excellence in Needle Arts for 2008.