Most of

the time, knitting is very relaxing for me. Lace, garter stitch, cables, I love it all, and those nights where I got maybe 2 hours of sleep in a row, knitting socks kept me sane. I always feel a sense of accomplishment and not much makes me happier than giving my loved ones knitted gifts. NOT.THIS.WEEKEND. I guess this is what I get for rushing through things, knitting with one eye and the other eye on Robby, it was bound to happen, I've had many knitting successes, and it was payback time. I've been working on a Rebecca sweater for going on two years, I think she was mad at me because she was stuffed in various boxes and tupperware while I knitted bright, shiny, new things. After finally knitting the sleeves, I noticed on the front that sunlight had bleached a portion of the sweater (she sat in my car for a month). I was tempted to go over it with a black Sharpie, but I did the right thing and frogged it. When it came time to block the sweater, something terrible happened, I wet blocked it and like a good little knitter I started all my new balls of yarns on the ends so I could weave them up the sides. Well, I was in a rush, because Robby was in the bouncy chair, something got snagged, and a section on the side got pulled too tight and snapped. I managed to untangle this wet sogging mess and get the stitches on dpns so I could graft when everything was dry.See that little frayed tail? That's where it snapped, I could have unknitted further, but the idea of trying to graft and do a cable at the same time struck fear into my heart. So, once everything was mostly dry (and smelling kind of dank) I tied on a new piece of yarn to that little mangled tail, and said a prayer then I tried to graft the ribbing, then tried it again...and again..and finally I thought I got it right, then I looked at it today and it was still wrong, finally I got it to where it looks ok.It's not perfect, but after the 6th time of trying to graft, my yarn was getting all untwisted (I hate you GOA! You and your 10 little singles plied into one are the bane of my life!) and fraggly looking so I'm leaving it, at least it's on the side so it won't be noticeable. If that wasn't enough for ya, remember Robby's lil' Malabrigo Tomten I've been working on? Well, you know after you have knit 28 ridges on the fronts, and the back, you rejoin all the stitches to make the hood? Make sure you don't twist any of those panels, like this.I wasn't undoing the grafting on the hood and ripping it out, so I broke out the scissors and snipped, did I mention I had NO green Malabrigo left? So, I unknit one row and grafted from each side and had the two tails meet in the middle in the back.I did have a bit of success this weekend, I made some progress on one sleeve, and experimented with some short rows to get a little bit of shaping on the sleeve. It's not much, but I think it makes a nice transition from the shoulder to the arm, it has more of a ben d to it, I wanted to practice the technique for when I do the shoulders on Rob's Tomten. Speaking of, here it is 19" of garter stitch goodness,I'm ready to divide everything up for the fronts and back, I'm making the armholes much shallower, more like a regular sweater. More on that next time!

I've just posted to Robby's blog so go check it out too! If you want to get on the list, just leave me a comment, and I'll email you an invite.