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Monday, September 5, 2011

The Myth of Prometheus

As you may (or may not know), in the story of Prometheus, Prometheus defied Zeus by giving fire to mankind. Zeus punished Prometheus by having him *chained to a rock where an eagle would tear out his liver and each day it would regenerate*; rep from * to * ad infinitum.

In my knitterly version, a knitter (like me) would knit on the way to have lunch at someone's house. When she got there she realized that somehow her numbers were way off. Irreconcilably off. On the way home, she has to undo all that she knit on the way.

So the knitting version of the story of Prometheus would knitting and then having to undo what you knit, ad infinitum. Chilling version isn't it? On the other hand, you're never at a loss for what to do.
Here's what happened, in my Abrazo shawlette, there are short rows to fill in the depth of the lace border. Somehow I ended up with 55 more stitches on one side. At first I was going to fly in the face of this inequality of stitches by decreasing more on one side than the other. However, that could only end badly as it would be really noticeable. I just really didn't want to rip it out.

As we began the drive home, I thought, 'do I really want to do this in the car'? However, I was my own captive audience and knew that it would get done if it did it in the car. Once I got home, it would get pushed to the "no pile". After successfully taking it out, I counted my stitches to make sure I had the number I should have. I figured maybe I ended that pattern with 55 more stitches and that's why the short rows didn't work out. Nope, had the right number. Just one of those things.




3 comments:

Nancy said...

Love the comparison, shall we call you Pam/Prometheus?

Ann said...

I think the myth if Sysophis and his rock would also qualify.

Pam said...

I forgot about that one, Ann, that is even more appropriate.

In Greek mythology Sisyphus (play /ˈsɪsəfəs/; Greek: Σίσυφος Sísyphos) was a king punished by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this throughout eternity. He is also found in Roman mythology.

The word "sisyphean" means "endless and unavailing, as labor or a task".[1]