Do not forget your pattern at home...twice

Stornaway sweater for DH

After two days of 'winging it', I finally remembered to take the pattern with me Wednesday morning, and discovered...that I'd overshot the point where I was supposed to start the cuff by about two inches.

Damn.

Ripping out your work on public transit is just not fun. For one thing, there's not a lot of elbow room, and for another, it's so humiliating. Also, I barely had enough time to get all the live stitches back on the needles before my train stop.

However, that's the only bad news. The good news is that sleeve #1 is dunzo. And only by Wednesday! I'm so proud of me!



See, some time ago, I was inspired by the incredible speed of Laura's knitting to finally learn continental. And it's been going very well indeed. I'm still astonished at how fast I can plow through a sock, for example. But more interestingly, I've started using it on bigger projects, like this sweater. And I am absolutely convinced that it's making a serious difference. This is, after all, the third time I have knitted this sweater pattern, so I have a pretty good idea of how long things take with it. And this time around, it really seems like I zipped through the sleeve like nobody's business, particularly since I'm not knitting as much each day as I used to. This is huge. I actually would have stood a chance of getting through two weeks' worth of knitting (according to the Schedule) in half the time! (But then on Wednesday afternoon I was hit with Yet Another Headache that wiped me out for several days. It's still there, but at least it's now mild enough that I can function.)

Oh, wait...there is one more piece of bad news for this project. My mom asked me this week where I was planning to block it.

Again, damn. I never thought of that.

I think I might take her up on her offer to do it at her place.

Garden Shawl for MIL

This got brought out and worked on when we visited my parents on Monday, since I can hardly knit DH's Christmas gift right in front of him. We spread it out on my parents' dining room table to admire it - unblocked, it looks pretty bad, of course, but the potential for glory was obvious. (Fortunately, my mother reminded me about eighty million times NOT TO LEAVE THE PATTERN AT HER PLACE, so I did indeed remember to take it with me when I left. Phew.) And then it got brought out again during the seemingly interminable Liberal leadership convention yesterday, and...wait for it...I FINISHED THE EDGING.

Yes.

I couldn't believe it, either.



Here it is, pseudo-blocking on my living room floor, with the wrong side facing up so that I can fix screwups and sew in ends. It's very slow going. But, like the edging, I have faith that the finishing will someday be, well, finished, so that I can actually block the darn thing and check it the heck off my list.