A Little Yarn On The Side

Yesterday started off with a trip to the dentist.  It was just a cleaning, and I really like my dentist, but I still don't think a REALLY good day starts off with a visit to ANYONE in the medical profession.  Then I ran some errands, came home, hauled bags in, then headed to the gym to swim for 30 minutes and walk laps for 30 minutes, then intended to come home and make soup.  That was the intention.  I was so tired by then that I seriously considered crawling into bed, even though it was barely after 4:00 PM.  I didn't even have the energy to do my physical therapy exercises.  This health thing is really a full-time job some days.............

So, I think I've decided to frog the vest and start over.  In order for the current stitch count to work, I need it to stay at the same gauge as the ribbing with the smaller needles, and that seems unlikely.  I think taking out one of the 18-stitch repeats will make it work, especially since patterns tend to loosen rather than tighten upon washing.  So, this poor little ball of yarn is going to be knit for the THIRD time, and since I try to use the yardage tally to accurately represent what has been taken out of the stash, I won't get to count it AGAIN.  Maybe I need to start keeping a "frustration tally...."

Bright and early, Andy made me some new table legs: There's a wooden dowel inside the pipes to give it some additional strength.  The table is now 36 inches tall, and I love it!  It's a bit less stable than it was before, but not much.  So I spent much of the day straightening the sewing room, getting the final place mat and the batting cut out, and even got a bit of sewing done.   I think I'll do some sort of decorative stitching to keep the batting in place, but I think they'll be quite fun.  I even tried the coasters: and after figuring out that a half-inch seam allowance was more appropriate for making a small heart ornament, I think I got everything figured out. I had the good day. Theo, on the other hand, had a rather bad day.  The sewing room table is one of his favorite spots to hang out, and where I keep his water glass: He has a water bowl, of course, but only uncultured kitties drink out of a bowl, and giving him his own glass ...

We're trying to interest one of my nieces in knitting, so I picked out some yarn that I thought might be most interesting to her without being the knitting horror that so much novelty yarn really is.  Her favorite color is pink followed by purple, so I thought this would make a nice combination.  It's not quite as satisfactory as buying yarn for oneself, but it takes up less room, involves far less guilt, and fits in nicely with my plans to convert the rest of the world to the yarn arts.  World domination--just a few garter-stitch scarves away..........

Yesterday Boise got its first real snowfall of the year--dumping around 6 inches in one day.  I hurt my back two months ago.  A smart person might have though this would be a good way to get out of shoveling snow.  And what did I do?  Check with my spine doctor ahead of time to make sure it would be okay for me to shovel snow when and if we ever got any. WHAT WAS I THINKING??????????????????????????????? Even better, remember the balaclava I bought yarn for in my self-pity order in November--the one I was going to make because my face gets so cold when shoveling snow?  Not even started.  Maybe I should round off all this idiotic behavior by casting on something involving size 0 needles and cobweb yarn for my 12 sweaters in 12 months challenge--wouldn't that just be the final touch? 

After reading my post yesterday about needing a taller cutting table, RobinH sent me this link:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/xixstar/2557752709/ Now how clever is that?  And that's even the EXACT table I have, so we know the PVC pipe extensions will work for it.  Now I just need to do enough excavation in the sewing room to find the legs and let Andy take care of the rest.

For the green vest, I selected this pattern   for an overall cable and rib look.  I decided since there was some variety to the cables, I didn't need other patterns involved.  Since I'm making this up as I go along, I diligently swatched, and got 4.5 stitches per inch with the size 8 needles I'm using for the body.  I thought I'd aim for a 43-inch circumference, as the future recipient might be just a shade larger than Andy, and Andy's last sweater I made for a 42-inch circumference.  4.5 x 43 = 193.5 stitches.  Adding a 10% ease for a cabled pattern and working into the 18-stitch pattern requirement, I originally decided to cast on 216 stitches.  THEN I started measuring and second-guessing myself, and thought that maybe 10% wasn't enough ease for such a scrunchy pattern, so I then decided to cast on 234.  In the ribbed part, the gauge is 6 stitches per inch.  That made me a bit nervous as 234 divided by 6 = 39 inches in circumference....