CPR

OK, time to resuscitate my poor little dying blog. Frankly, it's the freaking sweater that's in the way of my blogging. You know that cable pattern that I marveled at in my last post? Yeah, well, it is the BANE of my existence. I know, I know...cabling is really NOT that complicated. It's true, with some focus and attention, this little yoke shouldn't be too hard. But I am making NUTTY mistakes all over the place and have probably ripped out as many rows as I've knit in the whole damn sweater so far (I really think that this is close to being true as I mentioned it to Andrew and he readily agreed.) Anyway, those cables in my previous post were completely frogged when I realized I'd messed up so much that I couldn't salvage it. I had worked and reworked the yarn so much that it was all felty and pilled like an OLD sweater, no joke. So I started over and just went really slow. I've still had to knit and frog a bit, but mostly due to general stupidity. To wit: last night I put the sweater down because I was at my first purl row that involved decreasing. Since this sweater apparently doesn't like to be knit after 9 pm, I put it down and picked it up today, only to forget that this wasn't a regular purl row (purl to end) but a purl row with decreases...and I didn't realize this until I'd finished purling the whole row. See? Idiotic mistakes. Anyway, I was at a brief impasse up 'till now when I realized that I didn't have the correct decrease directions written down (remember? The ones I'd lost but Laurel sent to me?) Of COURSE I wrote them down wrong because why should I do anything with the sweater that I don't have to repeat 18 times?? When I finish this sweater I will a) throw a party complete with party hats and favors and b) kill someone if it doesn't fit me perfectly.On another note, today Andrew, my Dad, and I went to Commerce bank to count some change. By "some" I mean this 5 gallon glass water jar that my parents have been filling with change for a bazillion years. Once my Dad had very partially filled this same container and didn't want to deal with taking it to the bank himself (this is before the days of Commerce bank and free coin counting). He said if I dealt with it, I could keep whatever was in there. I was probably still a poor college kid at the time so I eagerly (greedily?) took on the task by myself, which was no small feat considering change is flipping HEAVY and my biceps are puny. Well, 5 or 6 pillow cases later and I'd lugged it into the bank....only to find out that it was a few hundred dollars' worth of coins. I informed my Dad and he decided then and there that that was the last time he'd ever make a deal like that. So flash forward umpteen years, and we now have a completely FULL change jar. I mean full. See? Andrew and I struck a deal with my Dad where we got a cut of the profits and off to the bank we schlepped. We filled the bags in the machine so many times that the teller eventually just kept the machine open for us to dump the change directly into rather than closing and opening the thing again. I must say, those Commerce employees are pretty patient.

And so we come to the fun part: Guess how much money was in that jar. Whoever gets the closest will get a little present from me. Don't include the paper money you see in there, you can't put that in the change counter! Yeehaw! It's my first blog game! Let's say voting will last for a week (since probably no one is looking at this blog since I post once a century) and you can only vote once. And just so ya'll know, Andrew, my Dad and I all voted and I came closest - less than $25 off. Yeah, beat that.

Tangled Up

Here's the latest on my progress on the Tangled Yoke Cardigan. In all, it's knitting up pretty fast and the directions are sort of clear. But the wording is funny in some places and I've found myself frogging more than I think I should need to for a relatively simple pattern. Of course, the truth of the matter is I should read through the directions BEFORE I dive in, but hey, I consider myself virtuous enough for actually knitting swatches, so forget pre-reading the directions. Besides, I'm a kinesthetic/visual learner (that's the kind of lingo you get after you teach for 10+ years) so just reading something isn't going to help me.Anyhow, I'm up to the 'tangled yoke' part which is a series of cables. It's fun watching them appear as I go, although slightly maddening since I have to be really focused or I miss a stitch and start a cable too early and the whole row ends up wonky. I'm now at the point where I CAN'T knit in rehearsal since I have to consult the pattern so much, which is a pain in the butt since we're doing Sweeney Todd this year. That means lots of sitting around listening to the alto, tenor, and bass sections going over their parts and every once in a while chiming in with the melody...Sondheim is a tricky fellow and we are a humble community theatre, so you do the math.

Sampler Efforts

I've decided to send some contributions over to The Sampler again. I haven't participated in a while, mostly because I hadn't been able to get my act together to make 25 of something (!), but I've been seriously digging the lavender scent coming from those flower stems that I made, so I thought I'd make some lavender bud bookmarks. I used some more of those pink and burgundy monogrammed napkins that were left in my box at work one day (you gotta love colleagues who know you well enough to understand that you'll be excited by random fabric in your pigeon hole) and made little hearts out of some scrap fabric from my first quilt. I KNEW I'd saved those 1" triangles for SOMETHING. Three cheers for upcycling!

And now I wait for my goodie-stuffed Sampler to arrive in the mail....dum de dum....