"Properly practiced, knitting soothes the troubled spirit, and it doesn't hurt the untroubled spirit either." ~ Elizabeth Zimmerman

11/11/13

Adding to the Chocolate

I've been busy the last few days. On Friday I taught the first session of a beaded knit amulet bag class. In this class, instead of using my pattern, we're using the book Bead Knitted Pendant Bags by Teresa Williams. I was told 3 students signed up, but there were only 2. It went fairly well. We worked on stringing their beads onto their thread. We'll start knitting at the next session.

On Saturday I worked very hard going through yet another set of boxes that are some of what I brought home from the closing of my shop and have been residing in the sun room. I eliminated several things, put other things away, and cleared out the whole space they were in. Then I moved all the boxes for Knit Wits stuff from the dining room into the newly cleared out space. I am so happy to have finished that task. I've been thinking about it for weeks. We had company coming for dinner Saturday evening, so I decided to tackle it and get the job done before they came so we could actually have dinner at the dining table. It's so nice to have my dining room back! Woo hoo!

We had our friends Don and Phyllis over for dinner. I made roast leg of lamb, roasted red potatoes with rosemary, steamed green beans, and strawberry spinach salad. Oh my goodness, was it good! I outdid myself on the cooking this time. Don and Phyllis enjoyed it immensely, which makes me pleased as punch. After dinner, we played cards until late in the evening, stopping at one point to take a break and eat some of the apple pie I'd baked. All in all, we had a blast.

Sunday I recovered from Saturday. I woke up so stiff and sore from hauling all those boxes around the day before. Urg. I spent some time in the hot tub with my morning coffee and a good book. It helped. Later Ruth and I went to a meeting of the Inland Northwest Freethought Society. It's the 2nd time we've attended. We had a very good time too. I did a little bit of knitting during the meeting, working on a pair of slippers for Knit Wits.

Today I devoted the whole thing to working on the Octopus sweater, which I'm now calling 'Chocolate Cephalopod' because the brown makes me think of milk chocolate. I played Star Trek DVD's while knitting. (Got through one movie and 5 episodes of the third season of Voyager) I finished the second chart and started the Octopus chart. HURRAY! Here's where I am at the moment.


Isn't it gorgeous? I am so pleased.

I had a difficult time getting the octopus chart started. I had a math mistake that took quite a bit of time for me to discover. There's supposed to be 126 stitches across each side (front and back), plus 5 steek stitches between. I had my chart set up for 122. I don't know how, but I managed to add 90 + 32 and got 126. Once I got that mistake figured out, I got the first 2 rows done, but they still weren't coming out right. I then discovered I made an error in counting when I put in the steek stitches, so one side was 125 stitches and the other was 127. I am NOT taking it out and redoing it. I decreased a couple sts on the 127 side and I'm just gonna go with 125 each side. Two stitches are not going to make enough difference to worry about. I've gotta get this sweater done. Hopefully, it will go a lot smoother now that I've got the thing going. Here's to keeping my fingers crossed-figuratively speaking, that is. (It's hard to knit with crossed fingers.)

Live long and prosper. \\//

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