The day that wasn't

Well, this is what happen when a person goes off in a blog post and brags about how they've never needed a lifeline, and how easy a project has been for said knitter (who will remain unnamed) and then that knitter gets 15 rows into the blanket today and happens to look down and realize that the entire day's worth of knitting has to be ripped because there was a dropped stitch somewhere along the way and it's turned into a giant hole that can't be fixed by any other method than ripping it out. So this knitter takes a 4mm circular and weaves it into the stitches of the row about 3 rows below this mess, and then rips. it. all. out... And then I (I mean She) still had to tink back two more rows to fix the error in the pattern that was just below that other mess, and it's just now back in order.

I've remembered that I actually do have another blog over here on blogger...the one about church stuff...and so if you feel like reading about Dante's Temple trip, follow the link.

Finally, I caved to the pressure

This is the start of the baby blanket for Jim's newest grandchild. This is actually the back side, but I felt like it showed the pattern better than the front (pre-blocking). This is the Faux Russian Stole by Meg Swanson and I've been wanting to knit this for a few years. I've decided to omit the lace border in favor of a plain garter stitch edge and I think that this change, along with the color, will keep it boyish enough. It's a really fun knit, made much easier by my breaking the pattern up into three sections and using post-it's and stitch markers to keep track of what's going on in them. If you have never knit lace before, let me tell you something that a wise woman once told me...use stitch markers to keep track of the pattern repeats. I know!...it's simple. Why didn't I think of that?...I'm not really sure, but I do know that if you do that, and count the stitches between those markers on every row, you can't screw it up too badly. And then if you're still not sure, you can use a "life line" which is when you thread a scrap piece of yarn through the last row that you knit (and are certain that it's correct), which allows you to rip back to a section that you know is free from error if you mess it up too badly. Thus endeth Cambria's Words-O-Wisdom on lace knitting.

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll be taking Dante up for his first trip to the Temple. I'm excited for this and I think he is too (but you never can tell with Dante). Hopefully I won't embarrass him with my excitedness. Then Saturday I have a lunch date with my friend from my last job, then the boys have a Halloween party at the Nielson's (while Aaron will be taking the Providence ghost tour with his mom and friends), and then it's back home for Dante to go out. If Alex does well at the party, we'll take him out too but if he's too tired it will just be The Boy. I'd like to bake something tomorrow for Halloween, but I've already baked an apple pie (yesterday) and a huge batch of molasses spice cookies (today) from a recipe I found on a great blog I just discovered the other day. The pie came out alright...I guess not all apples work out in pies. I bought a bag-o-apples at the market and didn't realize that I should have got a specific variety (according to the Big Book of Food (my name for it) from America's Test Kitchens, or that crusts could vary so much. Dante peeled, and cored/sliced the apples with a combo slicer-corer. Then he mixed everything up and I put the crust on, then into the oven it went. It looked pretty till I cut into it and found out that the mound of apples collapsed onto itself and the crust was hollow when I cut into it. It just sunk right down, and the apples were pretty mushy, but over all it tasted good. We're going to try it again, only this time I'll make the crust ahead of time and we'll get the right apples. As far as the cookies go...(again, learning from mistakes) they were too puffy and needed more sugar for my taste. It's nothing against the recipe, I just happened to have bread flour in the pantry and never realized that my flour combined with the leveners in the dough would make big, puffy cookies instead of the normal flat, cracked, sugar crusted ones from the photo. And I like a sweeter cookie so I'll make this again with all purpose flour and some white sugar. The boys like them so I guess that's what counts. Now I want to try the recipe for chocolate chip pumpkin cookies I found here, and see how that works out.

Sock Wars V- Iron Knitter!

Who's ready to do battle against Dirty Mittens?! Yes my friends...its that time again. (I only heard about this a year ago, but just pretend that I've known all along, and you have too.) Sock Wars V, Iron Knitter gets underway in January and sign-ups are happening now. Now it's my understanding that the war works like so:

1. you sign up to be a warrior, and when the war starts you get info with you target's sock size and color preference. Begin knitting your weapon!
2. you finish said weapon before your target does (hopefully), mail said weapon to the target whereupon they receive it in their mailbox and are summarily killed dead.
3. zombie targets (because they're dead) mail you their weapon-in-progress, and you finish it off and then mail it to the next target on the list, killing them dead too (you're a knitting fiend!).
4. keep killing targets, and taking names till you're the last knitter standing! "carnage candy!" (Randy from Scream...pause here while I go put on Scream)

I've signed up for the sock war, but opted not to go for Iron Knitter as this is my first sock war and with school and 3 year-olds, and preteens with Young Men's activities, and husbands who like to eat (off of clean dishes no less!)...there just isn't time for that. I *did* sign up for The Last East Coast Knitter Standing portion of the competition in hopes of insuring that I can win a prize, which is sock yarn from Cocoa Beach Yarn Company. The winner gets 20 skeins! Knitter with the most kills gets 15, last East Coast knitter standing (this happens to be my category but it's the same where ever you live) wins 5, and the people who were killed by the winner, or the knitter with the most kills gets 1 skein! Way to go! That really takes the sting out of being dead, not to mention that you get a lovely pair of socks out of it when the dust settles. If you knit socks (and you know who you are...) go sign up so we can knock each other off!