When stats go bad

Okay. Honest to heaven, I am NOT kidding about this...someone actually found this blog last month by Googling "phallic socks".

And that's all I'll say. I think it's perhaps best not to think too much about that one.

Stornaway sweater for DH

One thing my blog stats don't tell me is that Carrie K is stalking this sweater. Wannietta also sent along a lovely compliment about it, but Carrie says that she covets it and wants me to give it to her.

She does have a point, though: I don't think he'd notice if I sent it to her (aside from the minor point of then having nothing under the Christmas tree for him from his own wife). I think I have thus far been successful in concealing it from him. But I had a narrow escape on Saturday morning. As usual, I was up before anyone else, and decided to pass the time by starting in on shoulder strap #2. I was EXTREMELY paranoid and kept leaning forward to look down the hall about every thirty seconds to make sure that he was not coming. However, the #$*&@-er managed to surprise me ANYWAY. I did the only thing I could think of - threw the sweater aside desperately into a corner of the room he couldn't see from his vantage point (I don't think I dropped any stitches in the process...I haven't had the courage to check yet), and tried to cover with my A Very Harlot Poncho project (a pathetic ruse, given the obvious throwing of knitting and the panicked expression on my face).

And do you know, the dear man apologized for walking in on me! He assures me that he saw nothing. (I hope this is not just an attempt to make me feel better.) Yes indeed, he deserves the sweater. Sorry, Carrie. :)

Arabesque blanket for baby Mendez

Triumph - I am three-quarters done the body and it is looking really cool. Despair - I am fast running out of yarn and DH did not have a chance today to swing by the store and pick up more.

Pictures of this project continue to be absent from the blog due to the fact that I'm planning to submit it to Knitty (sorry, Carrie K). I've even worked up a first draft of a concept proposal. I'm pretty freakin' excited about this!

Thank you so much to all the very kind people who commisserated about my various aches and pains, and my daughter's head-smashing (the swelling is pretty much gone and the bruise is mostly yellow, and in some places, gone entirely - all hail the healing power inherent in the body of a human child), and who rejoiced at the gratitude shown by the recipients of this project. I have really lovely readers.

And finally, Gill slid in a zingy inquiry and then quickly retreated. The answer to her implied question is that...I have no answer. I am in limbo. Again, that's all I'll say. :)

Fast update

Stornaway sweater for DH

Wednesday evening I went to the Lettuce Knit SnB, and I accomplished this:



Shoulder strap #1!

Arabesque blanket for baby Mendez

This is coming along really well, and got some favourable comments at the SnB, which was nice. I'm now halfway done the body of the blanket. Today I started switching back and forth inconsistently between English and continental knitting on this, and so far I haven't been able to tell (admittedly, I've been a bit too nervous to look too closely, but generally speaking it all looks even, so I'm pleased). Basically I tend to go with whatever seems to be the best with wherever I am in the subway car at the time. ("Best" being a combination of personal comfort and not poking my fellow passengers.) All other things being equal, I go with the 'need for speed' and choose continental.

Ouch

So my headache went away after sticking around for about two days (and heartfelt thank yous to Carrie K, Wannietta and kelpkim for your sympathies and well-wishes). I just get headaches sometimes. There doesn't seem to be a single trigger. Usually I take something (Ibuprofen works best, especially the new gelcaps) to make them go away. However, this time drugs were not an option, unfortunately, so I had to suck it up and endure. Fortunately, one night cosying up to an icy gelpack (maybe I should buy stock in gel technologies?) knocked out the worst of it and by the next evening I was okay.

But wait...there's more.

Monday evening, DD tripped and whacked her eyebrow ridge on the coffee table. A huge goose-egg immediately ensued, followed by a spectacular shiner. You can clearly see the point of impact - about a centimetre away from her eyeball. It makes me feel all horrible inside every time I think of how close she came to hitting her actual eye. Fortunately, there doesn't seem to be any damage other than the usual swelling and black eye that comes with this kind of injury. But for the next few weeks she's not going be too photogenic, I tell ya.

And then, to cap it all off, last night I noticed a little break in the nail on my left pinky, far down, right at the quick. Ooh, I hate those. I tried so hard to cut back the nail without hurting myself, but instead the damn thing ripped right into the quick and it hurt All. Freakin'. Night. Long. Explain to me how one wimpy little surface injury can sting SO DAMN BAD?!?

Hey, Universe? Can I please get off the Pain Train now? I'd appreciate it every so much, thanks.

So anyway, back to what you presumably want to read about...knitting!

Marina mentioned jokingly in the comments that she switched to Fair Isle to avoid the crazy-making hazards of trying to get your self-striping socks to match. If Fair Isle intimidates you, take note! This could be the motivation you need to get into it! :)

Fafner blanket for baby Whyte

They loved it.

And there really is such a difference between someone saying a happy thank you and someone saying a really grateful, heartfelt thank you. Of course, both are nice, but the latter is golden.

The mum-to-be - a terrifically driven individual - had the thank-you card delivered into my hands about two workdays later. It sez:

Thank you again for the beautiful hand-knit blanket! You must have spent a lot of time making it for us - it is truly appreciated! I'm sure it will get a lot of use.

I am very, very happy about the whole thing. As far as I'm concerned, the baby should now feel free to show up at any time. :)

Arabesque blanket for baby Mendez

Anyone who is being particularly observant about The Schedule will have noticed that I was supposed to have completed about three-quarters of this project by the beginning of July. Instead, I procrastinated for over a month on completing the design of the pattern, let alone starting the project itself.

This was not so great, because now that the baby shower party for my co-worker expecting in August is finished, this means that the gift for my co-worker expecting in September should be finished about a month from now.

Eep.

(And yes, despite my concern that giving something with a hispano-araby motif to someone from South America may be offensive, I've decided that I'm probably overthinking things and that I just need to get over myself and not worry about it.)

So this past weekend I got serious about this project. I did some swatching for the motif I had in mind, which helped me make the final decision on how the chart should be laid out. I also made a decision on what yarn and needles to use, so I did a swatch with that, too. I measured, did some math, cast on a bunch of stitches and have been going great guns ever since. I'm not even close to being completely caught up, but I'm getting there.

Sadly, this project makes for awkward commute knitting because I'm using straights. This is because all my circulars of the same size are currently in use. One of these days I'm going to figure out which projects are using the circulars I need and cannibalize a needle for this blanket, so I can stop being paranoid that I might poke my fellow subway riders.

The pattern, incidentally, uses lace to outline the motif. I think the effect will be extremely interesting when it's all done. Unfortunately there will be no pictures of this project posted here, because I'd like to submit it to Knitty when I'm done. If I'm lucky, you'll see the design for the first time there at some point in the future.

Stornaway sweater for DH

Today on my lunch break, I cast on with some scrap yarn and started up the shoulder strap. I have done a pathetically small amount of work on it so far, but at least it is started.

(P.S. - Pictures will return to the blog soon, I swear. :)

Headache

Eurgh. Actual knitting progress will be forthcoming when I'm functioning properly again.

Feeling restless

So you may have noticed that I've got this Schedule thing. In January, I planned out all the projects I wanted to accomplish this year, figured out how long I expected each one to take, based on how much I expected to be able to do in a single week, and then plugged all these weekly milestones into The Schedule, ditching the lower-priority projects when it became clear that my reach was going to far exceed my grasp. I've been more or less following this Schedule ever since. (And yes, it really does demand that I capitalise the first letter.)

In many ways, this has been really freakin' wonderful. I have been getting everything done that I wanted to do, with very little - if any - stress. Not once this year has my husband become a knitting widower, single-handedly taking up the slack of my responsibilities as I frantically knit into the wee sma's to get projects done on time. (Unsurprisingly, he is thrilled about this.) I've even been able to fit in smaller unscheduled projects, like socks, here and there when my Schedule duties are complete.

However, this weekend I discovered a disadvantage to The Schedule: A dull, bored feeling about my knitting that I think is due to the lack of project spontenaeity. (Sprinkling in a sock here and there among The Schedule's dictates is just not cutting it anymore, spontanaeity-wise.)

I discovered that I am really missing that wonderful feeling of being insanely inspired to do a new project, burrowing through the stash until I find The Perfect Yarn, cannibalizing other projects for the needles I need, and casting on before you can say "But what about all the Christmas knitting?"

I'm not sure when this realisation hit me. It might have been while I was pawing through every knitting book I own, desperately looking for inspiration. It might have been while I was taking half my stash boxes off the shelf and rifling through them with the vague notion that I was looking for something 'good'. It might have been while I was wondering whether I had enough blue alpaca left in the stash to make this (seriously...do click on that link and scroll to the bottom for the final photo, it's stunning), and considering who on earth I could give the finished product to. But at some point it hit me that what I was really doing was looking for excuses. Excuses to break out of The Schedule and do something CRAZY.

Don't get me wrong, I love The Schedule. It has gotten my knitting $#!+ together, which is really an unbelievable accomplishment, given that I have spent most of my life with my $#!+ scattered hither, thither and yon. But clearly I need to build more 'free weeks' into it - weeks that I can just say 'to hell with it' and do something insane, like a ridiculously intricate fair isle project with steeks, using motifs I charted myself. (Yes, the thought did cross my mind. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to pull something like that off without shelling out money that I don't have.)

Orenburg Style Shawl

This is the result of my frantic hunt for a crazy, new, inspiration-laden project. Originally I cast on according to the instructions (bottom border first), and then decided I wasn't up to figuring out how to turn the corners - I think I just wanted something mindless yet insanely gorgeous and stunning. Besides, when I am already stumbling over endless lace border repeats in another project, why heap on more of the same? Dammit, I just wanted to dive right in to the insanely involved lace part. So instead I'm just going to knit the centre first. I'll figure out the border later. Given that I have no idea if I have enough blue alpaca to finish the whole thing, this is probably a good idea. Hopefully I'll have enough to do the centre, and if it looks then like I'm running out of blue, I'll do the border with the grey alpaca - I've got tons of that. (The blue and grey alpaca, BTW, are leftover from this project.)



(It'll get bigger, I promise. Especially once I stop leaving the damn pattern at work every night.)

Fafner blanket for baby Whyte

Firstly, thank you so much to all the nice people who complimented and congratulated me on finishing this project.

I unwrapped it, labelled it, re-wrapped it, and brought it to work. It is now hiding in my filing cabinet until the shower party. However, before I re-wrapped it, my daughter insisted on snuggling with it. So I had to take an 'in action' picture:


(Damn, I should have written 'kid-tested and approved' on the label, too.)

Garden Shawl for MIL

70 repeats of the edging are done. 50 more to go. Whimper.

(Carrie K, you have provoked my wrath. I suggest you start running now. ;) )

Stornaway sweater for DH

I've isolated the two left shoulders (front and back) and put all other stitches on spare yarn. I'm ready to go for the left shoulder strap. One of these days I will remember to bring some spare cotton yarn to work with which to do the provisional cast-on.

Simple scarf for DH

At last, a picture.


The scarf itself is so visually dull that I felt it needed some added 'country style' interest, hence the rocking chair.

Foot-pampering socks for Mom

I decided to go ahead and start using the Austermann yarn that I bought originally, the stuff with jojoba oil and aloe infused into the fibres. I mean, what the heck, who else am I going to use it for, right?

Answer: ME. Omigosh...this stuff feels a bit scratchy in the ball, but knitted up it's much nicer. You really can feel the difference that the jojoba and aloe make when it's in sock form - but it's not oily in the slightest. I've no idea how they do that. Plus I love the way it stripes.



(I am determined to make them match, despite rachel's Opal sock yarn horror story from last entry's comments. Shudder.)

I'm using the Yarn Harlot's 'sock recipe' from her Knitting Rules! book, because I was tipped off by my dad that my mother's feet are so wussy that she absolutely cannot stand toe seams (thank you, Dad). Therefore my usual toe-up sock pattern that I usually use is right out, and Harlot's sock recipe (top-down, obviously) is in.

I haven't given up the idea of knitting my mom some socks in the Sea Silk - I had a dream this past week where I whipped it up into a pair of beautiful lace ankle socks, which, after I woke up, my conscious mind agreed was a really rockin' idea. But for this Christmas, I think she's getting these stripey ones.

Weekend accomplishments

Fafner blanket for baby Whyte

Done! Ends have been woven in and blocking has been done. I'm very pleased:


completed


'artistic' shot

It's all wrapped and ready to go to work on Monday...except that I haven't labelled it yet. Whoops. I'll do that before I hand it off.

Socks for DD

Ugh. Making the socks match was an excruciatingly tedious process, and I cut it very, very fine with the yarn, in some cases leaving only an inch or so of end to weave in. But it all worked out in the end and, to my delight, I have two socks for my wee girl made from the leftovers of this pair and a teeny bit from this pair, and they match each other, and DD loves them.



(Don't mind the awful bruise on her left shin...I have given up trying to keep her limbs bruise-free. She's three. If you've ever parented a three-year-old you will know whereof I speak.)

They are obviously a bit too long in the foot right now, but I'm not worried about that. I made them long on purpose so that she would still fit into them by the winter.

Ack

So I manage to nab myself a whole bunch of new readers (including kelpkim, thanks for letting me know you're here!) and then - wham. An entire week of silence, thanks to...I'm not quite sure. A combination of laundry backlog and trying to get to bed at a decent time every night, I think. Oh, yes, and needing to get out of the house early every morning because our daycare provider has been on vacation this week and the morning routine became a bit different.

Anyway, I'm back...now with my shiny-new "Help An Old Lady Walk Across The Yarn Store" badge, according to Ella and Carrie K. ;) And I have a considerable amount of progress to report, to boot. Marina noticed that I have a lot of projects, and several of them have seen action over the past week. (You should really click on Marina's blog link, BTW...she does INCREDIBLE projects. This recent one in particular is absolutely stunning and I covet it deeply. DEEPLY. Marina, you rock.)

Garden shawl for MIL

A few entries ago, I mentioned that the edging was starting to melt my brain. At the time I was kidding, but now? Now I think I may have been onto something. The edging is actually starting to dull my enthusiasm for any kind of knitting (a sure sign that I am not in my right mind). Part of the reason I have so many projects with progress to report on today is that I have been branching out from this project in a desperate attempt to save my sanity.

That's the bad news. The good news is that I'm well into the third side and can spread the whole thing out enough so that it looks like this:

Black socks for DH's boss

I figured a good antidote to endless 14-row lace edging repeats would be...endless stocking stitch in the round. Yeah! Way to change it up!

Surprisingly, though, it does make for a bit of a nice change. Not an exciting change, of course, but nice. I finished the toe a few days ago and this morning got started on the rest of the foot. Because DH found the other socks I'd made from the same yarn perfectly snug, and because he feels his boss' foot is a bit wider than his own, I increased to 76 stitches instead of my usual 72 for a man's sock size, and will probably increase after the heel to 76 or 80 stitches. It's coming along very nicely so far.

Stornaway sweater for DH

I took a picture of this - but sadly, when I downloaded it onto my computer I realised that the camera had gone all weird and completely missed capturing the stitch definition. Since a picture of a mottled dark green blob is not very interesting, I scrapped it. Hopefully when I take pictures for my next entry the light will be sufficient enough that the camera will take a half-decent shot which will cause Carrie K to covet the sweater even more strongly. :)

In the meantime, I am extremely pleased to announce that the back of the sweater is FINISHED. A major milestone. Next up: shoulder straps. I love shoulder straps! True, they are fiddly but they are also way cool.

Taupe socks for Dad

My lace project was boring me so badly that in desperation, I decided to sit down and work out the math for how I was going to transition the leg cables into ribbing for the cuff. It turned out that my original assessment that the number of stitches wouldn't let me do it nicely was completely wrong. (Sometimes I miss the obvious.) It will, in fact, work perfectly and (hopefully) look fantastic. Now I just need to free up the sock needles to actually do it.

Fafner blanket for baby Whyte

I'm helping to plan the baby-celebrating party for my co-worker. (It is not a shower...I've had it impressed upon me by enough guys that one does not throw a 'shower' for a man. Even if it looks like a shower, sounds like a shower and acts like a shower, it is not a shower if we do not actually call it a shower. I hope we're all clear on this point.) Therefore, I know exactly when it is going to be: SOON. Like, next week. (If he reads this blog I am screwed, because it's supposed to be a surprise.) The realisation that I needed to finish this blanket immediately kinda hit me like a truck, and so I've been doing the destable tasks of sewing it together and weaving in the ends for the last few nights. I am almost done - just a few more ends to weave in, some gaps to fill in at the corners, and then a quick block to smooth it out a bit. But even now I think it looks pretty darn good:


The only problem (discovered way too late to do anything about it) is that it totally does not match with the white, red, navy and light blue 'antique sailboat' theme of the planned nursery. Oh, well.

Good knitting deed of the day

On the train going down to work today, I was approached by a woman - oh, probably in her eighties somewhere - who had been watching me work on my Garden Shawl project and wanted to know about the yarn I was using for it. Fortunately, she got off at my stop, so we were able to keep the conversation going even after I left the train.

Turns out she is a long, loooong-time knitter. She talked about doing fair isles and also that she had ALMOST convinced her mom to buy up a yarn store business for her when she was seventeen. (Apparently the reason her mom didn't cave was a fear that her daughter would never meet men if she worked at a yarn store...both of us had a good chuckle over that.) But - get this - she quit knitting, because she couldn't find any good yarn or knitting books, and figured nobody was doing knitting anymore.

!!!

Needless to say, I set her straight. I rattled off all the Toronto LYSes I could think of off the top of my head (Lettuce Knit - which she'd even been to, when it first opened! Romni Wools - which she'd also visited but was confused by its largeness; The Naked Sheep, Knitomatic, The Knit Cafe, The Knitting Place.) I told her about the profusion of knitting books, the increased popularity of knitting, the emergence of knitting stores as souces for classes and knitting get-togethers (I really could not bring myself to call them stitch-and-bitches in her presence). I talked about the vibrant community of knitters to be found online (alas, she does not Internet).

In short, I got her thoroughly charged-up. She confessed to me that she has felt lost without the knitting - that something vital was missing from her life. She seemed delighted that it sounded like there was still something out there for her, and thanked me very much.

I totally think she's going to get back into it. I'm so happy about this, I feel like jumping up and down. To heck with Boy Scouts helping old ladies cross the street...I help them get back into knitting! :)

Another exciting thing is all the comments I've been getting with the recent increase in traffic. (Unsurprisingly, the numbers have gone down as time moves on, but even yesterday I got 388 hits and am at 138 so far today as I write this. Happily, this has all been accompanied by increases in the number of visits from repeat visitors, which I like very much indeed.) Dianne R. in Florida and Julie commented that they might keep reading, which is great! Welcome, ladies!

Carol, on the other hand, found me through a Google search for "Cape Cod" (because of this project) and commented with some advice for avoiding laddering for the sleeves of my Twizzle project. Sadly, I am already using the technique she recommended (approaching the new needle with the working needle under the just-finished needle), so it's really just a matter of imperfect tension. I do get the feeling that the cotton is making it harder than if I were using another fibre, and I agree with Tallguy and Carrie K that eventually washing and wearing will even it all out.

And finally...yeah, Gill, I'm not surprised to hear that your life is revolving around the whole eat-sleep-poop thing right now. Hang in there - pretty soon he should start giving a little back in the way of interaction and, y'know, caring that you exist. :)

Garden Shawl for MIL

The edging keeps going...and going...and going. Wanietta advised me to stay strong and the edge will sneak up on me and finish itself. I have to say that I have also noticed this phenomenon on knits that look like they're going to last forever. This one, however, is still in that on and on and on stage.

Stornaway sweater for DH

Thank you so much for your compliments on this, Carrie K. I'm very pleased myself with how it's all going - I whipped it out on my lunchbreak today and hit the halfway point of the back.

Socks for DH's boss

This is a project that I keep forgetting to mention that I've started. Last weekend I got my husband to try on the black socks that I made for my dad to see how they fit. (Yes, they are for my dad, but I made them the same size as I would for DH because they both seem to have the same length of foot and girth of calf.) DH said they were more snug than most of the other socks I'd knitted for him (likely because the yarn is a little thinner than all the other sock yarn I've used). So, based on that, I've decided to make the foot girth for these socks a little wider than usual to accommodate his boss' feet, and to make the legs quite a bit wider because DH thinks the guy's calves are probably much bigger than his own. Subsequently, I cast on for the first sock, but so far have done precious little else. However, I can at least say that the project is officially started.

Relocated roughage rocks

Last night I headed on over for the combination "Congratulations Amy on quitting your job and doing Knitty fulltime"/"Grand opening of Lettuce Knit's new location" par-tay. And I had myself a grand old time. How could I not, surrounded by such great people? I even met Wannietta! (Whose name I mispronounced embarrassingly, sorry. For any of you who may meet her in the future, be warned, it's not wan-ee-ett-ah, it's wan-ee-tah, like Juanita.) And I also met Barbara!

First of all, a word about the new location. Apparently at last week's SnB, the ceiling started to leak. (!!!) I don't think any yarn was hurt, but Drea apparently got a good soaking in her efforts to stem the tide. The leaky roof was the catalyst for Megan (the amazingly competent owner of the shop) to find a new location, and FAST. But where? The answer...an unused section of her house literally just a few doors down from the old location. Best part: It has a BATHROOM. This was the cause of endless celebration last night. "Have more to drink? Sure I will! There's a bathroom here!!!"

Honestly, I have never seen so many people hanging out in/around the shop at the same time. It was madness. At one point there was a lineup for the cash going right out the door. So congratulations, Lettuce - I expect the shop will be entirely successful in its new location.

The most amazing part of the night, for me, came when Amy did the draw for all the door prizes she'd brought. Despite the fact that I never win anything, my name got drawn, and I won this:

I've only done a cursory glance through the book, so I'm not qualified yet to give a decent review, but I can say a few things about it. It looks like it talks quite a bit about Andean design elements, which is very nice indeed, especially since there are photos of actual Andean art sprinkled throughout the book to demonstrate the inspirations for the designs. There are also quite a lot of knitting patterns in the book. Unfortunately, not a lot of them jazzed me - just not to my taste. YMMV. However, I was definitely jazzed by this one:

It must be mine.

(Amy, thankyouthankyouthankyou. I am thrilled.)

If you want to read more about last night's awesome fun, I expect blog entries about it will appear at, among other places, Naked KnitGirl, Yarn Harlot, cosmipluto knits, and Knit, Stitch, Click. (There will likely be more, but those are off the top of my head.)

Garden Shawl for MIL

Worked on this for the first half of the evening, and it got a lot of attention from other knitters. (Intricate lace just does that.) But eventually I had to give it up because my brain was being melted by the endless repeats of the edging. The good news is that I've got an entire side done, have turned my first corner, and am probably about one-third through the whole edging. This allows me to spread out the work enough to show you this:



(Please don't mind the row markers dotted everywhere. As I approached the first corner I realised I was going to end up being short three stitches. I used the row markers to painstakingly figure out exactly where I'd gone wrong. Sadly, the answer was 'way too far back to frog'. So instead, I fudged gonig forward. However, for reasons unknown I haven't gotten around to removing the row markers yet.)

Stornaway sweater for DH

When I got sick of endless lace edging last night, I switched to this. The night was turning a tad chilly, so this had the added advantage of keeping me warm (lambswool/camel kicks lacy cotton/silk's ass when it comes to warmth). I'd say I'm about a third done the back:

Holy cr...I mean...Welcome, Harlot fans!

Normally I get an average of about 40-60 hits on my blog per day.

Well, the other day, the Yarn Harlot posted on her blog about a drive to promote breastfeeding, which knitters could help with by making fruit/vegetable-themed baby hats. I sent along several links to free patterns that fit this bill, and she posted them in her entry of yesterday, along with a link to this blog.

Yesterday's hit count skyrocketted to 817.

As I've been typing this, seven more hits have shown up in my stats for today.

The woman is a power in the universe, I tell ya. My apologies to anyone who visited and found all the graphics broken - I host my site images on Yahoo!, which tends to run away and hide when there's lots of traffic.

Anyway...welcome! :) This is just yer average blog about knitting, probably made remarkable only by the fact that I have huge numbers of projects going at a time and am not afraid to take on ridiculously involved knitting. With any luck, a few of you will like it here and stay, which would be cool.

Anyway, in knitting progress news - the previous three days were the Canada Day weekend, and also the weekend for a big SCA event around these parts called Trillium War. So I did not get a whole lot of knitting done. But of what I did get done, there are pictures...

Garden Shawl for MIL

Warning: the edging may kill me. I got started last week. There are 120 row repeats of the pattern in the entire edging. I think I've done 20. Aiee. At least I've memorized the pattern by now, which is helpful. The nice thing is that it's letting me start to stretch out the piece and get a better idea of what the whole thing will look like:


Which is very exciting.

Twizzle cardigan for DD

In my snatches of downtime this weekend, I picked this up. The first sleeve is now approaching completion:


(If you look closely, you can see a laddering line. Sigh. What can I say - the yarn is thick and it's cotton. Given a bit of wear, the lines will probably even out on their own. I refuse to get a hangup about it. REFUSE.)