Briefly

And why should today be any different from the yesterday? Or the day before. Or the day before that. Frankly, I don't expect to have a life again until Tuesday. Maybe. And I am, apparently, not alone. There's a whole slew of people stumbling in here because they've googled that Hamlet quote about "all occasions" *. I take some comfort in that. Misery loving miserable company and all.

Still, it seems unfair to leave you knitting-less for that long. While I'm slogging , you can admire Clare's Christmas Market knitting.

These are the Starfish Washcloths by Cindy Taylor (the same designer who did the Reverse-Bloom Flower Washcloths in Melanie Falick's Weekend Knitting). The pattern was part of our Williamsburg loot. Clare figured if we paired them with soap, packaged them creatively and used the word "spa" in their description, they'd sell.

There's a word for daughters who take off for the far reaches of the globe after having had the fun of knitting, leaving their mother's to do the grunt work. I can't think of it, but I know it's out there.

I wouldn't indulge myself with a picture of my contributions, except I'm puzzled. Something/s is/are conspicuous by their absence, no?

Wondering where the Stupid Booties are? So am I.

*It's Act 4, sc. 4, l. 32-3.

I Was Right and I Was Wrong

I was right. The Good Luck Jade finished arriving today.

I was wrong. The expected dye-lot issues aside, it's too much green. No blue or grey in sight.

Let's just pretend I do Yarn Pr0n and call it a wash.

Truth Hurts

You Are a Fruitcake

People pretend you're sweet and precious, but they know how weird you really are!

What Holiday Food Are You?

Other people get to be trifle or gingerbread.

Thanks (?) and a hat tip to Kathleen.

The World Is A Carousal of Color or Brown Is Not the Same as Blue/Green/Gray

One Thanksgiving Feat (also Feast), four pies (3 pumpkin, 1 pecan), 3 loaves of pumpkin bread (to use up the last of the canned pumpkin) most of a Science Fair Project and a great haircut later and I'm back.

It turns out Clare and I were at cross purposes. I was talking main color. She was talking contrast color - specifically something that would work with the Shannon. Seems I neglected to tell her about that little comment on the manufacturer's website. The one that said "For great for felted projects, machine wash your knitting" [sic]. Whether they meant "Great for felted projects; machine wash your knitting" or "For great felted products machine wash your knitting" it was still the kiss of death - now that I have accumulated 22 balls of the stuff.

So. Not brown after all. While the nice people at String Theory are trying to track down more Cloud Jungle, I've been pursuing other blue/green/grey combinations. (Cloud Jungle on the Internet or anywhere else is about as available as hen's teeth, or eye of newt). I'm thinking Good Luck Jade. I started to copy the picture, then got all hung up on copyright issues, so you'll have to click the link to see it. I'm thinking it's beautiful on it's own, looks like it will work with November Muse and qualifies as a fluffy color of the blue/gray/green variety. I have 7 skeins working their way across the continent (really, I found a skein in Minnesota, some more in Ontario and the rest in Ohio). Best predictions have the yarn starting to arrive Wednesday.

You wonder what am I knitting while I wait? Well, there's the Latest Swatch, posted here partly for Clare's benefit, in case I'm wrong about the Good Luck Jade and end up knitting a brown afghan after all. This is actually a wonderful work. For one thing, despite my tension issues, I won't have to try to knit an entire afghan on size 17 needles (the Scribble Scarf was hard enough, thank you very much). In fact, I'm not too fond of that end section knit up on size 15's.

So, although I'm not getting gauge with the US 13's, which is the size the pattern calls for (and why am I even trying? the only thing the pattern and I have in common any more is the basic method), I may decide I like that fabric best.

Hence the decision to order 1750 yards instead of 1500, in case that smaller gauge eats up more yarn than I think it will. Feel free to let me know if you have a preference.

And then there's the 2nd version of the Second Baby Surprise Jacket.

(Sorry Diane, the blue on blue was too boring to knit.)

Hope your Thanksgiving was happy. Hope you all saved room for pie.

Only 29 days until Christmas.

That'll Learn Me

You just never know, do you? Here I was all bent out of shape because my daughter had demonstrated an independent mind. My knickers in a twist because she had the audacity to question her mother's decision, the sheer unmitigated gall to suggest there might be a better way. Smart woman, my daughter.

After the chocolate turkey debacle yesterday, I stopped at Knitche. I had vague notions of adapting the sort of baby blanket colors they had in Plymouth Encore. Or maybe working up something in lots of Lorna's Laces colorways (getting a single Lorna's Laces colorway in afghan quantities is somewhat more difficult than locating the Grail). I came home empty handed, but with a new yarn to love. They had 2 skeins of Dream In Color Classy (the worsted weight) in Ruby River. The color was useless, but the yarn was, well, beyond beautiful. It's Australian merino wool. The colorways are unbelievable. Really, go look. And it's machine washable. Just to make it the perfect yarn for this across the waters project, the yarn is local produce.

Clare and I Internetted together. She chose November Muse. It took me 12 yarn stores, but I found it. In enough to make the afghan yet.

I tried to ignore her next email, where she told me the living room was blue and green and grey. She's artistic. I really meant to trust her judgement. I wasn't as successful as I could have been. One of these will be the contrast stripe. That's Lorna's Laces Shepherd's Worsted in Douglas Fir and Dream in Color in Cloud Jungle. I never thought I'd say this, but I can hardly wait to swatch.

The source of all this wonderfulness? 45 minutes away in the Western Suburbs.

So it's almost to the ends of the earth. At least this time I didn't come back empty handed.

Who Told?

Do you think someone mentioned that reference to my mother? Why else would she have called me to tell me she wants chocolate turkeys for Thanksgiving? I have committed to making the pies. Still, even though I think of myself as the recalcitrant one, I set off for See's Candy in Downer's Grove in the Western Suburbs of Chicago. (Have I mentioned that I actually live in the city of Chicago. Or that 3 of my siblings live in the Western Suburbs? Did I think of this when my mother called to instruct me to get the turkeys?)

Too late, alas, too late. All the chocolate turkeys had been sold.

Bearing the heavy burden of my egregious failure, I bought a pathetic substitute.

Perhaps she didn't mean to send me so far? Perhaps she meant me to go to that local chocolatier, Fannie May? Perhaps she has forgotten that since Fannie May was bought out, they no longer maintain a candy store in my neighborhood? Besides, it seems they are chocolate turkey-less this year.

I wish I had known that before I stalked all the Jewel-Oscos on my way home.

Hear That?

That's the sound of me tearing my hair out. Lifting her head from her academic/social crunch, Clare has given me some more information about the intended recipients of the Great Across The Pond Afghan Plan. I'm sure she didn't mean to confound me. The giftees are practical, eco-friendly - and concerned about dry-cleaning chemicals getting into groundwater and poisoning it.

Do you realize what this means? The afghan has to be machine washable (because who's going to hand-wash an afghan, right?). I have spent the entire weekend in a -- I thought, happily successful -- hunt for that rare and therefore precious commodity that is this yarn in this discontinued colorway. I received an email this morning that one of the only two shops that stock it had shipped enough yarn to get my sadly meager 920 "I think I can squeeze an afghan out of this if I fudge the stripes" yards to a comfortable 1472 "whew that gives me 128 yards for a margin for error" yards. While this meant I would be alternating skeins in an attempt to fudge the dye-lot issue, I was so relieved that I stopped looking for fuzzy, multi-colored, attractive, wool acrylic blends.

I could of course, as Clare suggested, wash The Swatch. You may have thought there was a rational mind behind this blog. Let me disabuse you. I feared to test The Swatch. I knew I would lose it to felting. I regarded The Swatch with a deep sense of foreboding - not only would the yarn felt, I would reach the end of the afghan and be short that exact, crucial amount. That these two circumstances are mutually exclusive was beside the point; if the yarn felted, surely I wouldn't be using it for this afghan. I was not, however, in the mood to allow a trivial consistency to be the hobgoblin of my little mind. I abandoned The Swatch and started another Baby Surprise Jacket.

If I'm going to snatch myself bald-headed, I might as well do it to a purpose. Besides, I need something to distract me while I send The Swatch through the washer.

Modifying

Question: How am I justifying all this knitting for myself and distant others when I have a local and beloved group asking for donations?

Answer: I am multi-talented, which is good. It does, however, sometimes mean I have to demonstrate a greater level of flexibility than I might wish. It's called a do-over.

For the Christmas Market, they want ornaments. I can do that. Ta da! "Marbelous Ornaments."

These are particularly fun. If I don't like one (read: WTH was I thinking?),

with a little hot water, I can change it. This level of flexibility I can handle.

Then they asked for wreaths. I can do wreaths.

Although it has occurred to me that since the Market isn't until December 1st, that sort of Autumnal wreath on the left requires some adjustment. Lose the maple leaves. And I haven't decided on the ribbon for the one on the far right. I'm not bad with this level of change either.

Back on the knitting front, Clare has asked for a sample, so I have swatched. Astonishingly, I am spot on with both stitch and row gauge using the recommended size needle, although I shouldn't be since I'm using very different yarn. The pattern calls for Classic Elite Bravo (main color, very fancy fuzzy mohair/multi-texture fiber blend) and Montera (smooth contrast color). I'm using Tahki Shannon (much less fuzzy main color) and an as yet unknown contrast yarn.

Unknown because, based on the swatch, what looked gold in the skein looks too brown knitted up. Which was annoying on several levels. Once I had knit up that first bit and gotten the gauge miracle, I ran a "blind" test past Marc - "blind" as in I didn't ell him I already had plans for the contrast. He recommended green. I, of course, blithely disregarded this and got my deserved comeuppance.

I don't have enough of this particular yarn (Dale of Norway something). Which is fine, since I think I want something with a sheen to it (wool and microfiber? wool and silk?). Still, I have to admit he was on to something and that kind of flexibility, I need to work on.

Yesterday

I'd been hearing my mother's voice in my mind's ear. Any time I tried to get a really interesting bad mood going, her response (reproof?) was, "You just better get busy and get happy." Sometimes, if I had been really insufferable, a "young lady" was added at the end.

It doesn't always work. Still, there's a definite feeling of satisfaction when I tackle something. So tackle I did. All of this

was in here with all of this

and I turned it into this.

All my muscles hurt. Even the ones on the sides of my fingers. And while I had hoped to completely clear the aisle, at least now I can get to everything. It's not pretty, but it's workable.

I deserves a reward, wouldn't you say? All those trips to the alley. All that stuff that was too good to throw out but will never be used by us, bagged up for Salvation Army. All those huge boxes (like from the TV, which is at least 10 years old) flattened and ready for John to break down for recycling. I've decided on my single piece of Christmas knitting. And I can write about it, because it's going off to Clare's room-mate's family in Norwich. They don't read The Blog. They don't even know about it.

I ran the idea of an afghan for them past Clare and she was most enthused. I believe the word "fabulous" was used. Since I want this to be something they'll like, I asked about colors (here 's the difficulty). She said they "have lots of fluffy colors" in their house. "Fluffy colors"? What type of color value would you put on "fluffy"? I didn't know either, and she's head down in a paper at the moment and hasn't responded to my plaintive P.S.'s.

I decided I'm on my own. This is what I've come up with, except bigger. A pattern from Weekend Knitting.

Yarn from the stash.

I'm a little short of the main color yarn requirement for the afghan size, but well over the requirement for the lap blanket. I'm thinking I can fudge on the solid color stripes to add length.

My only question is, is it thoughtless to knit a beautiful afghan that someone I've never met will have to dry clean? After conquering the wild and recalcitrant storage space, I'm feeling brave and daring. I'm going to cast on and take my chances.

Not Yet

Having unloaded on you all last night, it seems only fair to tell you today - it wasn't to get custody, it was to prepare to petition for custody. It turns out this process will go on for months. I'm married to a lawyer. I should have known nothing can happen in our court system in such a direct and efficient manner. I can't decide if this is worse or better.

Still given the assumption I was working with this morning, and with Elizabeth Zimmermann's advice to "knit on" in mind, I packed for the occasion. Here's what I knit while I thought we were going in for guardianship today. It is symptomatic that I dropped a stitch (in garter stitch?), didn't notice for about 6 rows, picked it up wrongly, and then knit on oblivious to the fact until after I had bound off badly.
Here's what I knit when I found we didn't have to go there quite yet.

So much for attempting to present a cool, competent, impassive face to the world. At least, so much for the attempt had there been any other knitters present.

In case you're wondering, I figured I needed something extremely simple and portable, so Kay will get a couple of 4 inch garter squares from Chicago. A gift from the mother of one disabled child to another.

Call It What You Will

If you came hoping for knitting today, sorry. I'm having a Welcome to Holland moment. I had all kinds of titles for this entry. "Queen of Denial." "Bumping Into Reality." "It's Differently Abled." "Getting Smacked By Reality." "Earth Calling Julie." I'm afraid I'm using the blog, and thus using you who read it, to vent. Otherwise we're looking at some form of spontaneous combustion. Messy. Think how disconcerting for the boys. John will never get his homework done.

Bottom line? I don't know what to call this post. We have to go to court tomorrow to be named Marco's legal guardians. He is 18 now. That means he's an adult in the eyes of the State. That means he will be declared incompetent.

I am not completely lost in a dream world. I know Marco has Down Syndrome. I have the karyotype should I need to remind myself. I know he will never live independently. Never go to college. Never marry. It seems gratuitous that on top of all those nevers, he will, as of tomorrow, officially never be competent.

Mostly, Marco is joy. Sometimes he's anger. Sometimes he's grief. Often he's lonely. Always he's loving. He is the bravest person I know, in that put your head down and confront a world that doesn't like you, doesn't respect you, won't understand you, pities you, way. And do it daily. For years. But I have to go into that court tomorrow and, frankly, I'd rather eat squash.

I have many words for Marco. Trust me, not all of them are warm and loving. Stubborn as a pig comes to mind. Genius at procrastination. Master of not hearing what he doesn't want to hear. Tester of patience extraordinaire. But incompetent?

It's Not Rocket Science

Still, one should be able to replicate one's results, shouldn't one? Else one's work was nothing more than a fluke. Happenstance. A mere fortuitous event.

Which, believe it or not, brings me to the Huckleberry Scarf. I am indulging myself, making one for me in the yarn Shelley sent, even though I only have two pairs of booties, one Baby Surprise Jacket and a Huckleberry Scarf for the Christmas Market.

There are a lot of people looking/coming by because of the Huckleberry Scarf (well, a lot for this blog). Even though they don't comment, it seems possible they're having as hard a time on the whole "pick up 115 stitches" as I did. So, despite the fact that they don't comment, I feel the need to correct my previous post.

You see, I have never been able to pick up 32 stitches again, not since that first edge. This leads me to believe that I only thought I knew what I was doing. Not that the basic idea isn't sound, just that I don't know how to do some of the higher mathematical functions. Like divide. At least, I don't know how to apply them to knitting. What does it mean when one has 32 (or 30 or 31) stitches, wishes to turn them into 115 stitches, and therefore divides 115 by 32 (or 30 or 31)and gets 3.X where X equals that odd little decimal that represents the remainder? This is fine in mathematics, but in knitting it's so many tenths of a stitch. What's a poor frustrated neo-knitter to do with part of a stitch?

All right, so I did eventually figure out that I should always round up - in the case of the HS that means getting 4 stitches out of every 1. And I did learn that I like the end stitches to be single stitches. I don't know why. It just satisfies some odd craving in my soul for punctuation. I don't particularly want to admit this, but it took a fair bit of puzzling to figure out that the higher .X was, the more single stitches had to be turned into 4. Still, the fact that my answer was 3.X meant I was going to have to compensate somewhere (sounds so much more elegant than "fudge," don't you think?)

Despite my conviction that I should be able to do all this in my head, I resorted to manipulative's.

Okay, okay. I drew it out. We can't really dignify what I did by calling it a chart. Maybe a graphic. My thought was, if I really pay attention this time, really plan it out, really write it all down and use stitch markers and count, I'll be able to fly through the other end. Because now I'm obsessed. I really like this scarf. I think it would be fabulous in Sea Silk. I want to see how it looks without bobbles. Or with open bobbles. Or with a picot edge (which I don't know how to do, but how hard can it be?). I can get away with this, because they'll all go to the Christmas Market and I won't have the embarrassing evidence of Huckleberry Mania lying around the house.

A few other details. Because I care how the exposed edges look, I used the crochet cast on (oh come on, it's fun, just remember to move your yarn behind your needle each time),

I slipped the first stitch of each row purl-wise with the yarn in front,

and I bound off in purl.

Anyway. The final solution? The one that worked twice in a row? Pick up 31 stitches (this will take a little bit of finagling on the 2nd edge but it can be done). K1, *KFBFB 7 times, KFBF, KFBFB 6 times*, KFBF, repeat part between **, K1. Honest to God - 115 stitches. I counted.

By the Chimney With Care

I wasn't going to post today (more Parent-Teacher Conferences, this time for Marco), but as Kathleen's banner daily reminds me, Christmas is coming. This vague sense of impending holidays was intensified when I got an email from Diane this morning with tidings of great joy from Schoolhouse Press. Meg Swanson is doing a Christmas Stocking knit-a-long right here. The stocking is fabulous - a thing of beauty and a joy to behold - and you can still get caught up, since there's only 4 posts so far.

In my pre-knitting days I managed to acquire a fairly fabulous set of stockings. Add to that my long-neglected, single foray into stranded colorwork, and you won't be surprised to hear that I will not be participating.

Which makes this post truly a thing of goodness and altruism.

How All Occasions Do Inform Against Me

I have been a tad less than cheery. Too many activities on the weekends. Too many school projects and meetings (it's parent teacher conference time). Too much finding out that 13 year olds really will slide down the path of least resistance. In Language Arts. And Science. And Phys Ed. And Spanish. (He's so intelligent, but - ) Entirely too much spousal overtime resulting in too much single parenting. I've reached the point of desperately wanting to shriek "Everybody just get away from me" entirely too often. This does not make for good knitting.

Ugh. Swatches.

Exhibit 1. Why I can't use a broken rib edge with this stitch.

Exhibit 2. The yarn's too bright and now I've knit with it I can't return it.

Further annoyances.

Exhibit 3. Shorter cables mean shorter needles and my yarn store was out of 24 inch US 8 circulars. (How can you be out of 24 inch US size 8 circulars. Isn't that like the grocery store running out of apples?)

Exhibit 4. This yarn, though lovely to touch, is too grey/purple.

Sorry to go all Gilbert and Sullivan on you all so soon. While I have not quite been willing to embrace the ethic of King Gama in Princess Ida, that " the days seem lank and long when all goes right and nothing goes wrong and isn't your life extremely flat when you've nothing whatever to grumble at," I have come perilously close.

So close that when I opened my front door to find a package leaning against it I was less than receptive. More of "Oh honestly. Now what? I didn't order anything." than "Ooh!" or "Ah!" or "I wonder what this could be?"

Guess what? It was a present. For me. From Shelley.

Isn't it lovely? Mountain Colors Twizzle in Lupine, although it makes me think more of twilight. What L.M. Montgomery calls "the Dim" in the Emily novels. I fell in love with Mountain Colors when Clare and I went on our one and only excursion to The Fold last November. More recently, on a trip almost as far northwest with Diane, I had lusted over some Twizzle at Gene Ann's, but came home empty handed - I don't remember that they had this color. Neither of these yarn stores could be called "local" by any stretch of the imagination, so I usually have to indulge in Mountain Colors vicariously or virtually.

I was completely deflated. So much for wallowing with the Melancholy Dane. I always knew I didn't like Hamlet.

Picking Up Where/What I Left Off/Out

Infinity is in the details, or so I have been told (a misquotation of Le Corbusier and/or Mies van der Rohe I think, but I like it) and today I'm thinking about details.

I don't know why it's so hard for me to remember to include the minutiae about what I'm knitting - you know, what yarn? What needles? What pattern? Where did I find it? I've realised there's a whole raft of projects I've written about without telling you anything. Well, anything that you might want to know should you be feeling inspired to make one of them yourself. This vast desert of un-information stretches all the way back to the Stupid Booties. Clearly, something happened. I refuse to believe my mind ceased to function when the kids started school. It must have been a comet. Or maybe an eclipse. Possibly an alien mind-wipe, although I hope not, since no one seems to have noticed anything different about me.

So, herein and forthwith, although in no order in particular, are The Details.

Those baby booties. It all started in Williamsburg at Knitting Sisters, when we found Lorna's Laces at 40% off. That we travelled to Virginia and bought yarn manufactured in Chicago struck us a silly, but not silly enough to pass up that kind of sale.

Pattern: Christine's Booties, pattern published in Threads, given as a handout from Knitting Sisters and posted at Fuzzy Galore.
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd's Sock. The colorway is Glenwood. Since I have actually been to Glenwood Springs (and bought yarn there, now that I think about it), the southwestern feel to the color should not have taken me so by surprise. But it did. I suspect it contributed to my dislike of the poor things. It looked so sweet and pastel-ish in the skein, and came out all brick and adobe in the product.
Needles: Bamboo dpn's. US 2/2.75 mm.

The Scarf That Never Ends was this years offering on the altar of the Red Scarf Project. I don't think I even emailed a picture to Norma this year.

Pattern: Mostly Rowan's Knitting For Him "Striped Scarf."
Yarn: Cascade 220 Superwash in 893 (the red), 890 (the turquoise) 862 (the camel) and 867 (the dark green).
Needles: Addi Turbos, US 9/6.0 mm.
Tweaking: I didn't knit the scarf in two halves, joining them at the back of the neck. I knit it in one piece, mirror imaging the colors. I also didn't knit the 2 halves in the same main color with two different contrast colors for each half. (Go look at the scarf on the Sulky Rowan Guy and you'll see what I mean).

Which in my stream of consciousness brings us to another scarf that I tweaked: the Huckleberry Scarf. (Edited to add: Better tweaking here.)

Pattern: The huckleberry Scarf, Interweave Knits Holiday 2007.
Yarn: Blue Sky Alpaca in Huckleberry/805.
Needles: Addi Turbo's size US 9/6.0 mm.

It's been long enough. If you want to tell me the better way to pick up 115 stitches in the rows available, you can now.

The Baby Surprise Jacket didn't need tweaking, just me paying attention. Thank heavens for Meg Swanson and the DVD. I would read the instructions and think "It can't possibly mean that" or "It can't possibly be that easy." But it was, every time, it was.

Pattern: Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jacket.
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull, machine washable merino, in 007 (the grey) and 4018 (the red),
Needles: Addi Turbos US 6/4.0 mm..

Which in turn brings us back full circle to the Not-Stupid-At-All Formerly-Biker Baby Booties. These are not actually the famous Christine's Baby Booties. Thanks to Google, WiseNeedle and Woolworks, I found a slightly different version of the pattern here. These were written in a knitting dialect I found easier t follow. I also liked the ribbing at the ankle.

Pattern: Jane's Baby Booties.
Yarn: Dale of Norway Baby Ull, same as BSJ
Needles: Bamboo dpn's US 2/2.75
Tweaking: See yesterday's post.

I must remember to not neglect the details ever again. Writing about them has certainly felt like infinity. Did I miss anything?

Oh! The Drama

I bet you've all been waiting with baited breath. Will she make it? Will the knitting gods smile on her? Will they recognize her decision to return to the stupid booties for the sacrifice it is and reward her accordingly? The answer is -

Well, no. No. Not really.

My yarn ran out, and I mean ran out, at 15 rows past the ribbing and eyelets, not 22 like the pattern calls for. What to do, what to do? Well. There's the obvious solution, right? Rip out the first one until they match. But why go with the obvious and easy when one can make things convoluted and challenging? I decided on an emergency medical intervention. The first baby bootie was called on to provide a transfusion for the second.

I made it by the skin of my, er, yarn. Barely.

The thing is, after I finished the first one, I had decided that with this yarn, the rolled down cuff over-powered the bootie and had fully intended to rip out 5 rows or so to reduce the bulk. With the transfusion, I got 18 rows each. Close enough. The worst that can happen now is I decide to bring them both down to 17 rows after all, but that means more yarn left over, not less.

A further irony is, I had never intended to finish these. They were supposed to be an experiment to see how much more yarn I would need if I wanted to make a pair of booties to match the BSJ sweater. It quite took me by surprise how invested I became in the outcome.

This left me with one, last dilemma. All in all, these looked a little storm-trooper-ish to me, a shade aggressive. Biker baby booties. "My kid can kick your honor student's butt" baby booties. This pugnacious attitude, happily, was solved with a bit of red yarn and my crochet hook.

I think I may have broken the Curse of the Third Bootie. The only thing left to turn this into a happily ever after story is to decide on which buttons to use for the BSJ and which side to put them on - boy side or girl side.

Full disclosure compels me to admit there were more behind the scenes histrionics. Like when I knit happily round and round the cuff watching my stockinette stitch grow - on the inside. There was figuring out what I (thought I) had done that required me to change direction. There was knitting the second bootie and discovering that the mistake I had made in the first was, in point of fact, all the way back at the foot. Which led to trying to replicate the error (successfully, I would like to point out) on the second bootie so they would match and I could call it a design element. I'm saying it was to give more room in the toe box and nobody will make me budge from my story.

Such emotion. Such suspense. I bet you will never again imagine that I take knitting lightly. Truly, this is the stuff of epics.