It seems like a Dull November Day


And the Fall monsoons have started. Well, we could be saved by a nice long Indian Summer but it sure doesn't seem that way out there today. Or yesterday. Good thing I'm inside lost in gas-receipt hell. Gas-receipt hell??? That's what I call it when I have to add up FOUR year's worth of gas receipts for a truck driver's back taxes - AND he fills up daily!!! Good thing I've got soup simmering in the slow cooker & Ben Bova's MARS playing on my desktop player! I've become lost in Ben Bova's Grand Tour series. I listen while I work & it certainly makes the time go fast!
But this isn't knitting related, is it?? I didn't finish the Sweater Sprint - it was the Sweater Sprint I entered after all - event on the Ravelympics. I bit off more than I could chew - even in a size medium. A word of advice - never enter an untried pattern with an untried yarn in a timed event. I had to go down TWO needle sizes to get the correct gauge for my Wallaby. Then, part way thru the main body, I realized my gauge was off. I'm knitting 4 stitches to the inch instead of 4.5!! And what difference does half a stitch make, you ask?? Well, I'm thinking my medium sweater is now a large. The sleeve was ridiculous so I tore it back to the ribbing, ignored the "add 10 stitches" after the ribbing & just added a couple of stitches to the underarm every 4 rows until I added 8 more stitches overall instead of 18. I figure I'm about right for a slightly snug sleeve - after all, this is a WORKING Wallaby & the guy doesn't want huge arms to catch on things!!! My tension is waaaaaaay looser when I knit in the round! This won't be a bad thing when I want to make MY wallaby though. I should be able to knit the largest size to fit me - it should wind up two sizes larger. I'll just make it a little longer to elongate my body & keep my bum warm!!

And on the home front - well, I sent three pairs of socks off to new homes as birthday presents last week!! So now I have an excuse to start on the Christmas gift socks. I'm thinking of making Frankensocks - they're socks knit out of related leftovers with solid bands of blue or black or red for example, to bind them together. I often use black with stripes of yarns that have red bits in them or maybe a bunch that have blues in them. What fun to knit. Here's a pair I knit for Laura's daughter waaaay back in the beginning when Laura joined the Wednesday Nite Niters - we told Laura she'd have to learn to knit her own socks if she wanted any more of them!!! And then there's all those squares the girls knit. I intend to crochet them together into blankets this year & maybe knit some strips to make others if I can get the time.