I started a nice muted colored log cabin blanket in Lion Brand Cool Wool on Wednesday and it has been just flying by. Although now it is starting to get very heavy and hard to knit, it really weighs a ton. The colors all co-ordinate nicely. I think I am going to make it afghan size and give it to my dad for his birthday in September (maybe).

My wonderful Knitpicks yarn order arrived in my mailbox yesterday. 8 skeins of yummy soft Midnight Alpaca cloud, 2 skeins of undyed fingering superwash, very soft, a some tweed hopefully to make that super cute sock monkey hat from Knitty. It is ridiculous, but no genuine monkey collector should be without, right? Now I can finally get back to work on my giant circular project. I started row 229, so just 29 more rows to go and the Project of Doom will be complete. I can hardly wait, but it seems the close I get to finishing, the more stitches I drop. Must be some Freudian project sabatoge going on. I must not really want this thing to be done. Maybe it is just that I know when it is done I won't have any place to wear it and I will be wearing it with like jeans and a t-shirt or at dressed to the nines in a 3/4 sleeve t-shirt and peasant skirt with flip flops!? I will be such a vision of elegance and style....

Well enought wasting time here, I have to get knitting. I just realized what the perfect project is for some baby yarn I bought 2 months ago. I'm really running out of time, their baby is due in November (ha ha that means I still loads of time right!! what's the hurry? where's the fire!?)

So of course. What else would have happened? I pick up my knitting and begin working around, having worked the previous 8 rounds or so away from home, and begin counting stitches, working the pattern. But, what is this? This repeat has too many stitches!? Where did these extra 2 stitches come from? I trace them down and down and down and finally spot the exact moment of their occurence. Can you guess? Yes of course, I have failed to slip 2 (not just 1 but 2) stitches off the needle in this repeat section an have knit into both of them twice and of course each of these erroneous stitches is located a full 17 stitches apart!!

Why on Earth did I not notice this giant FLAW, this horendous glitch in my counting until a full 9 rows past the mistake. Ah yes, you see I made the mistake at home, knitting away with no distractions, only to gloss over said mistake 8 (YES 8!!) whole times before coming to realize this mistake. I spend the next hour pinning this evil work to a nice flat contrasting pillow and unwinding 18 stitches row by row wild yarn pinned to the pillow in an imitation of two sinister black rainbows arching over my rapidly dwindling work. Pick and pin, pick and pin. Sorry I didn't think in my addled mind to take a picture.

After just an hour and 20 minutes of pulling out those stitches I am ready to reknit back to the top. I spend 10 minutes (yes, it is 2:30 AM and taking me quite a lot longer to think than other times in the day) trying to figure out where I am in the pattern and finally resume my work. Crochet hook in hand lifting stitches. Passing over, yarning over. I carefully count each stitch on the row. AT LAST at just about 3 am I reach the last stitch on the top row. *Sigh of relief* I have corrected this egregious error. Life can go on. Sanity is restored. Except now I have to smooth out the really fantastic ladder in the work this repair has created. Upon finishing I gleefully cheer and yank my circular needle from which my stitches precariously hang pulling of 8 stitches. I rapidly slip them back on managing fortunately not losing any runners. This is clearly an omen. It must be time to put this knitting down and go to bed.

My very first blog attempt.

Well, this is my very first attempt at chronicling knitting. I suppose I should have started sooner then maybe I'd have some idea of how long things really took me, even just a written journal would have worked wouldn't it?

My current project is just nearing completion when I unzip my stash bag that should (or at least in my head) contain about 4 more skeins of my beloved Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in midnight and realize there is only one left! What? Where did it go?? I could not possibly have used 8 - 440 yd skeins of lace weight already. Could I? That is an astounding 3520 YARDS of yarn. 10,560 feet. Mind boggling. All on size 2 needles. What on Earth are you making with such insanity you ask? The "Sun Ray" design dinner cloth from Marianne Kinzel First Book of Modern Knitting, with intent as wearing it as a circular shawl, because who in their right mind would eat off of something that took so many days of their life to make only to have their children drip ketchup on it or grind rice into its tender fibers?? Begun on April 20, 2005 I now have only 37 rows to completion and now have to sit and wait for the knitting gods to expedite my shipment of yarn to me. How long must I wait!!! Sadly it dangles on the circular needle appearing as the worlds largest Rastafarian hat, a deflated jelly fish sail,a shapeless blob that compels my mother to repeatedly state "that will NEVER look like that nice flat lace we saw, that is all crumpled and wrinkly." Staring at the shapeless blob and waiting for the yarn to come I can feel blood vessels popping in my head. If I quit now I will never pick it up again.

I have since beginning it, put it down to make no less than 3 pair of socks, a childs sweater and a baby blanket. I can hear all the other yarn calling to me, "what about me? Make me, use me, forget that old crumpled thing." I am tempted. Please UPS man, bring me my box!!!!!