Thin line between love and hate...

I signed up for the Ravelympics at the last minute this year and I am now paying the price. We're making helmet liners in our knitting group so I decided to sign up for the Charity Curling event. Now the pattern says you need the exact gauge in order for it to fit under the helmet. I checked my gauge, switched needles, checked again and went to town:

Six inches of ribbing and you know how much I hate ribbing. I get to the part where I'm doing the stockinette section and just to be safe check my gauge again. Guess what? Wrong all wrong. So off to the frog pond:

I'm currently back where I started just about finishing the ribbing. I should have it done in time but damn what a pain in the ass. I get the importance of gauge and how it can make the world a better place since things you know fit like they should when it's right but I hate the actual practice of it. Blech!

I did finish something at least:

These are the Doctor Who socks for Avery that I started in March of last year, yes that says March. It took nearly a year to cast on and finish the second sock. The yarn is White Oaks Studio TV Yarn hence the name. If one looks closely you can see that the socks are fraternal. I completely forgot the slip stitch row on the instep of the second sock. Forgot it over and over again. I didn't realize until the heel decreases were completely done. I showed it to Avery and he said he didn't care so I left it.

I had switched to Blogger comments a few weeks back since Haloscan is going away but I hated it since I couldn't email anyone back directly. I am now trying out the replacement for Haloscan for a month. If anyone hates it let me know.

Back to the damn hat...

Two finished objects, one WIP down

I finally finished the second pinwheel blanket. It took forever. I ran out of yarn, then knit picks ran out of yarn, then I got the yarn but the last 25 rows take a fucking lifetime! At least it felt that way. To give you an idea the last 25 rows take 3 balls of yarn alone. The final row was 680 stitches. Still I'm happy with the finished product.


As a reward to myself I gave myself a nice easy washcloth to cleanse the palate as it were. This is the second of the monthly dishcloth KAL patterns for the year.

I actually finished something!

I was hoping the first FO of the year would be something I had started in 2009 but it was not to be. Last night rather than continuing on the pinwheel blanket that never ends I finished my first washcloth of the year:


The week has been crazy with classes starting but overall rush has been really smooth. I can't take credit though Spring rush has been like that for a number of years. Sadly I'm off to work today. I'd rather be in LI wishing a certain yarn shop co-owner a happy birthday!

Where the hell have I been?

It's been a crazy nine months. In my last post I hinted that professionally something had changed and it sure did. I was promoted to store manager of my bookstore. Unfortunately for the first 6 months or so the meant doing my old buying job and the new store manager job. This left very little time for anything else. It's smoothed out a bit in October. We're gearing up for a big move soon where two stores will be combined and the manager of that store will take over all the buying so I can focus on the store management. I sucked at it for quite awhile since I never balance well but the last few months have been much, much better. My boss has been very patient as well since he understood he was asking a lot.

We also got throw for a bit of a loop this past November when Ian's teacher said she felt we needed to find him another school for third grade. We've avoided an official diagnosis of his issues for years since he was getting the support he needed and doing well but his teacher feels A- if we leave the city to assess him he'll be kicked out of special ed since academically he's doing great. That would be bad because a large classroom would overwhelm him and we'd be back where we started. B- if we managed to keep him in special ed she didn't have confidence that the spec ed teacher for third grade would be a good fit for him. Not to mention as the kids get older in spec ed there are more behavioral and emotional disturbed kids and that's not Ian.

We're looking at programs now and we may have found a great spot for him but we're still in process so I won't jinx it by discussing it here. Suffice it to say that I think we'll have this settled in the next couple of months.

Have I been knitting? A bit. I have tons of WIPs. In fact I joined a Facebook group to work them off. This is what I'm working on now. A pinwheel blanket:


It's actually the second of two for twins who were born months ago. I just can't seem to get it done. First I ran out of yarn, then Knit Picks ran out of yarn so I've only picked it up again recently. I'm in the home stretch now though.

I'm also doing the monthly dischloth KAL again. They sure came in handy as holiday gifts! Here is the first one of 2010:



I won't make any promises about posting but hopefully I'll find a schedule that works. If any of you are even still out there, lol.

Congrats to my two dear friends Ann and Kathleen for their recent purchase of a lovely little yarn shop. I am equal parts thrilled and jealous for them!

Happy New Year!