Second armhole is edged, and I'm about a third around the outside. It's looking better, as long as I don't inspect the armholes too carefully.
Shyloh sez
If I change my mind and decide that this vest is a heap of scrap yarn, he would like it for a blankie.

An update even though I feel more like hiding. Over the course of a seven hour Red Cross Babysitting class, I ripped the purple vest back to the error I discovered. I just managed to get the thing off of the needles when they finished. I was at this class with my Girl Scout troop, and I was disturbed. Last year our cookie manager was a flake, and my co-leader had to spend three hours helping her get the paperwork straight. This year, a different manager seems to have "lost" 41 boxes of cookies. I love the scouts, and my co-leader is great but we can't get the other parents to be responsible. We will have to figure something else out to keep it fun.

But, back to the vest. It looked like this:

Now what?
Well, I crocheted the edges the best I could and cut the thing apart. Shhhhhh.... the edges are a mess.

I've done the I-cord edge for one sleeve, and half of the second. After all the first round of I cord is done, I'll try a few ideas to hide the mess inside. Stay tuned.

More vacation notes
After we all calmed down, we asked about the livestock. Horses - mostly Arabian, one PG, and another with a new foal.
"What do you do the the goats?" I ask. I wonder about goats.
"Those are sheep"
"Where is the wool?"
"They don't grow wool"
"So....ummmm what good are they?"
"We take them to the auction and sell them to meat processors. You are looking at future lamb chops. We keep them so we can get an agricultural exemption on our real estate taxes"
"Oh, I like lamb chops, but I like woo better"
"We like our exemption"
So, here is a picture of walking lamb chops:



Upon returning home, I noticed an error on my vest. I'm off to Lousiana tonight, and have packed for some moderate ripping tonight. Could I be the only traveling business person who packs more yarn than clothes for a two night trip?

Well, I'm back from a nice vacation in beautiful Fredericksburg, TX. My husband booked us a cottage that not only was not wired for telephone, but also out of our cell phone providers footprint. So, we were deliciously out of touch for over a week. Yummmm

Lots of knitting progress, which is nice, as the prior week was full of crankiness, and ripping. I think I went backwards more that I went forwards. On the work front, I was getting so irritable that any set back was like fingernails on the chalk board. It was either vacation or prozac.

The vacation started out badly though with a near death experience for Shiloh. The cottage was part of a small ranch, and the owner's German shepherd was not happy about another male dog on his turf. So he picked up our little guy and shook him like a squeaky toy. The land lady tackled her dog before he got back in to do more damage, and I scooped up Shiloh. I thought I had a mostly dead dog, but was pleased to see that he walked fine, and there was no blood spurting about. His face looked well after he calmed down some, and no strange noises were coming out of his chest. In the background the landlady was shocked to tears - her dog had never done such a thing, and my daughter was near hysterical. She had a dream the previous night that was this exact incident, and graphically almost the same. Creepy. The landlady called her vet, who agreed to see us right away. My husband was all cranky about how our dog was about to get a weird hair cut, but I was happy just to have him on my lap. The vet checked out Shiloh, gave him some anti-biotic, and suggested a bath and some baby aspirin. No shave job, no stitches, just one sore doggie, and a freaked out daughter and landlady. I took care of the daugher and the dog; the landlady took care of the vet bill, so all ended well.

Well, it's been an exciting few days in the back yard. Wednesday, we had a raccoon with a bad forepaw wandering around the porch. That got Shiloh and GingGong heated up enough to stop fighting with each other. I called animal control, and while holding, one of the resident armadillos returned home. She picked a fight with the 'coon, so we had a muti-species slam down going on. 'Coon wandered off later in the day, and the animal control officer never showed. I hope the fellow didn't die underneath my house.

Then, I was on a conference call, and mentioned that there were some lizards doing what appeared to be a mating ritual on my porch. They would walk in parallel, then one would turn, and they would walk in a circle. The gal I was speaking to asked if one was puffing out his throat. Well, yes. "Those are anoles, not lizards", she says. Oh. So I have anole sex going on? We left it there.

Here is what they look like from
wildtexas.com

Well, the Swatchy blog has been all blow and no show for the last few weeks. Today, this will change. Mostly the projects look the same, but bigger.

First up - the vest, rapidly approaching that armhole decrease. Once there, I intend to swoop around to the front, for a fablous finish:


And, the traveling project - more than half way to the armhole decreases


But... what's this? Swatchy got distracted from her "must do" projects this weekend. While tidying up the yarn room for a weekend guest, some mohair just got tired of sitting in her box. This skein is finished, but her friends call. Recognize the pattern?

Decided to work through the knit blog ring. Some nice new blogs out there, as well as, well, hemmm. Went quite a ways before I came upon a dead link, and I had sort of lost interest by then. Kind of odd to go through so many, and get sort of a cosmic global feeling for the cyber knitting world. Personal lives in transitions with moves, lost work and divorce and, oh yeah, knitting.

I find I don't give a rat what sort of yarn, needle or whatever I am, or anybody else is. I tend to loop at the pictures and move on. Lots of people in the blog or knot blahs. Then there is Rogue. I liked the pattern and ended up purchasing it. Will I knit along? Probably not, as I really want to finish the three projects that are on my WIP list - the vest, the blanket and Hank. The traveler will move along on his own, thank you.

And, did I mention that my husband is a weather god? The beautiful weather we had been having here broke into scattered rain and cold when the man got on the airplane. I've been working at home all day, and it's been really grotty. Shiloh has insisted in snuggling on my lap, which has restricted the number of rounds I've accomplished.

I've determined a solution to my yarn problem for the vest. I pathetically unraveled my swatches, and feel that I now have enough yarn to finish the front. That leaves one repeat on the back. I worked through my stash and found some purple wool that was close; just a bit more blue. Close enough that when I found it between the two colors in a swatch I had to look two or three times to determine that it was not the yarn I needed. That's close enough for me. So, I'll use it on the single repeat on the back. I'd be at that point if the dog wasn't using my lap as a bed.

Trying to transmute work frustration into positive activity. Two appoinments cancelled today. Three last week. So instead, I've snuggled up with some Voice over IP audio training, and am listening and knitting, and sometimes even browsing knit blog rings at the same time. How can I do this? As the speaker said today, there is a lot of redundancy in human voice. I also find that because of my past positions, I understand more of this particular material than some of my more traditional data only peers. That's the benifit of being an old lady in the industry.

I've not done the blog rings for a while. I find that Knit Kitty goes backward only three sites before hitting a dead page. Forward, it goes maybe twelve sites, and then comes to a site with no KnitKitty link.

Well, not a lot of knitting progress. Travel last week was to San Antonio, so I drove rather than flew. Got a speeding ticket on the way home too. Weekend was full of Girl Scouts and saying good by to hubby, who is going to Peru for another three weeks. Two and a half repeats on the "traveler" and approaching the armhole decreases for the vest.

The vest is troubling me. Since the first armhole, I've been anxious that when I cut it apart it will be a misshapen mess. Regardless of all my work with graph paper and swatches. I think I'm past that, and onto the fear that I will run out of one color of yarn. It was an e-bay purchase; Classic Elite Montara; label long lost; purple with some red in it when seen alone. It makes the "royal purple" look navy when placed against it. Once could call it "dark fuchia" I've looked all over the Montara color swatches on the web, and am not satisfied that I see the color there. 3852 looks too blue; 3827 is the hank I have and it's more purple and vibrant than that. On the other hand, I'm also comparing to a hank of Montara that I have a label for, and the screen colors aren't true. So, I could be in trouble, because the dye pot has changed a lot.

I'm also resisting shelling out $8.50 plus S&H for a skein that I may just need ten yard of. I spent some time this weekend finding all my swatches for this vest so I can unravel them and spit splice the pieces together. Pathetic.

Been a traveling girl, spending three days roaming around Louisiana last week. Hoping to go to San Antonio for a few days next week. Louisiana is starting to bloom, so I developed and came home with some very irritated sinuses. I can only hope that my allergy prescriptions arrive soon.

Traveling project has seen much progress. Even though it had to be torn back to the armhole decreases several times. I was three inches into it the second time when I discovered the pattern was a stitch off. Gag. Nice thing about knitting is that it can be torn back and re-done. The welt for the front is done, and I'm ready to start the body pattern for this week. Here is the back in it's curly refuse to block glory.

Regardless of the list on the right bar, I have two active projects. Both progress.

Now, for an old story. I usually carry my "traveling project" to work, and am known to work on it during the extensive conference calls that are a part of my corporate culture. I have a collection or rather rattty canvas bags that I use to carry the project. When I returned to the office from the holiday, I found this lovely bag, and a card. Problem. The signiture was un-readable. I spent three weeks wandering around the office showing it to people, and asking if it was them, or if they could read it. Very mysterious. Finally, a gal pal that I rarely see asked if I had received her gift. Of COURSE! Well, not really, I could attribute about three letters from the signiture scribble to her. Well, Thanks! I'm using it now, and it's lovely.

Not quite to the 50% mark on the vest. But, being four rows away, I'll update my bar to that mark.

Doing armhole decreases on the traveler sweater. At the library this weekend I picked up "A Knitters Handy Book of Patterns". Upon reading I find it is a compilation of the Interweave Knits "Grand Plan" patterns. I have these magazines, and was planning on pulling the sweater issues for this project. I notice that while the patterns shows set in sleeves and shoulder shaping, there is no back neck shaping. I want this to be a fully fashioned sweater, I guess I'll make it up as I go.

Hey ho, another comment. I feel so popular.

Well, yes, Liz, it is a Philosophers Wool graphic, adapted from their book "Fair Isle Simplified". They call this one "Southwest", not "Kilim". It's sort of the idea of their "Night Sky" colorway, done with yarns pulled from my stash. The stash which is way too large, as I sort of had a bad E-bay habit for a while, and was running my own stash redistribution project, with the yarn all ending up in my house.

My Mother in Law was a quilter, so my husband is quite comfortable with the notion of a stash that is larger than one's expected life time. I do love messing around with it.

The vest is still not quite at 50%, but I do have conference calls from 8:00a.m. until about 2:00p.m. so stay tuned.

I think my knitting mojo had come back. Didn't know it was gone, really. I've just been frustrated at the lack of progress on some projects. Making promises to myself, then not keeping them. Of course the projects don't progress unless one works on them, and I've just not wanted to touch them. I even put my purple vest in a pretty basket, and carried it around the house with me. Still didn't touch it.

Then, yesterday,
WHAM
Back came the mojo, and I could hardly put the vest down. Now, understand, it's a wierd thing. Side to side vest in the round? What was I thinking. But, here is progress in a strangely tubular sort of way:


I've been sort of guilty working on a new project when I have three that have been languishing. However, I rationalize it by claiming that I need a "traveling" project. The other three need too many colors, not to mention that one is hanging on a knitting machine. The pink vest and the machine knit blanket will be travelers when the time comes to attach their I cord borders, but not yet. So, I have this project, out of the frog pond, and about half way to the arm holes:


Usually, it's the dog I catch snoring, but yesterday, GingGong was the snorlax. She was snoring, and her little fangs were sticking out. I thought it was worth a shot to try to get it in a picture.

OOOOOOOhhh Comments. I get so few, it really excites me to see them there.

SO, Dave is a Disney guy, on the Disney channel, so those of you who don't get Disney won't see him for a while. As far a purling, I did notice he knit on straights. The cartoon artists didn't really clearly show the stitch patterns, so he certainly could have made a garter stitch dog sweater. Something tells me too much time has already been spent on contemplating Dave's cartoonish knitting skills.

In the mean time, I held a retirement party for a friend, and spent the weekend preparing for that rather than working on my project, so I've missed my first milestone on the "finish the stupid vest" goal. Urg.

A new knitting television star!

Dave the Barbarian. Not a great cartoon, and I find from reading Dave's background that gourmet cooking and origami are his lead hobbies. However, on the episode my daughter forced me to view, he did knit several dog sweaters, demonstrationg excellent design and shaping skills. I expect we can see better knitting interviews from Dave than Daryl Hannah, don't you agree?

Ahhhh, the joy of shopping with a pre-teen. Too young to go alone; too old to want advice from Mom. I notice that there are some nice sofas in the Junior depts these days, just fine for sitting with the purses, shopping bags and all important money. My daughter grew sooooo much this year that all relatives sent clothes in sizes too small, so we returned and exchanged this weekend. The traveling project made some progress:



And I found a picture of the pink vest. I really should work more on this. Especially if I want to have it done by the end of February:



OK - Deals with myself:
Jan 25th - 50% point.
Feb 1 - 75%
Feb 7 off needles and steeked

I have a silly secret.

Every morning, (before) I click on Wendy, I check out the comic "For Better or For Worse". It's a sweet soap opera of a comic. Well, she dropped a big romantic bomb on her readers today. Now, if you don't read the strip, you may have to go back about a year to figure out what the deal is, but for those who follow FBoFW, what do you think will happen next week?

Hmmmm......

SO, I think I have the camera thing figured out. Win98 and Win2000 are different in a lot of ways and I'm still adapting. So, here is the poor bit of yoar that went to the frog pond:

There is a bit of ribbing done again, but not enough to photograph. I found my swatch and measured it. I must have read the ruler wrong before, because the real knitting was the same guage as the swatch.

Now, I've gotten moving on the purple/pink vest. What was causing me trouble, I think is that I've gone off and started a rather creative construction method. I'm knitting side to side because the recipient is rather large and wants the patterns to go in the "slimming" vertical direction. Because of the trouble I had working the pattern back and forth, I'm also knitting in the round. So It's comaing out as a rather odd shaped tube. Again, due to the large size of the target, the armhole needs to be big big big. Her center back measurement was a normal 13". However, the finished size at the bust will be lose to 60". You do the math. The thing is going to be half armhole. Needless to say, the thing looks really wierd.

Now, with all the messing around trying to get the camera to work withthe new computer software, I've worn down the battery, so no pictures of this today.

Sniffy nose all around today.

I noticed my hit counter reset some time or other.

Comments are nice. Don't see any here, do I?