"Step away from the needles"

The knitting police need to come arrest me.

And lock me in a padded room. Take away my needles and let me rest.

For reasons which I am having great, great trouble figuring out, the camisole has kicked my butt again. It seems that a 9-stitch repeat over 193 stitches (+ salvedge stitches) is just more than my brain can handle. I cast on, I counted three times, not including the counting stops while casting on. I knit each repeat as a unit, stopping in between. After 82 stitches, I thought to myself the needle looked a little on the small size, better go get my needle sizer thingy and check. Yep, the wrong size needles- this pattern uses three sizes to increase and decrease. Not a big deal, I was not even half way across the row. I have a feeling this little break was when I did something wrong. Because in spite of all my slow precise knitting, I was really distracted because I could have sworn I had the right size needle and where the heck did it go!?! I was continuing the row with the right needles, figuring it would work itself out and barely show in the end. And since this one's not going to be examined too closely when I'm wearing it, well, I don't care, and since I had finally gotten the right number of stitches cast on and it was going so well, I better not jinx it again.

This yarn does not want to be a camisole. Or it was trying to tell me I was using the wrong needle. Something beyond my control completely. Certainly not user error.

So, I have set it aside. It's in timeout on the couch and I will pick it up again and make another attempt to get the pattern working properly. I ended up a stitch short, counted again and had the right number of stitches, so somewhere there is a decrease to be made to make it work. This time I am going to round up all the stitch markers I can find and place a freaking marker every 9 stitches. Because I seem to be horribly challenged by this one.

In New Orleans news we are sitting on the anniversary of Katrina. Can it be two years? I've been in a time warp. Lots of pictures of our personal progress if you feel like browsing through the archives for the blog. Here's last year's post if you're interested. That lonely dangling ball of yarn really does me in. I mean, that thing sat there through all the demo. I should print out that picture and hang it by the window...

Also coming soon to a Border's near me is the Yarn Harlot. Should be an entertaining event. I'm confused if she'll be talking about her new book or what, but hey, a night out of the house with knitting in hand is always a good thing, she could be talking about motor oil and I'd go. I'll be taking full advantage of Marky Mark the next month in it's entirety. His plans changed due to circumstances beyond his control and he will be gone another week. So he's said he will be Mr. Mom as well as Completely Involved Daddy to make up for the extra time away.

Curious are you? Well, it's kind of gossipy, but, I'll share...

Mark had about as much drama last week as a strong silent type can handle before he blows. And blow he did. He's been dealing with the last of the repairs and had a Handy Man head up to the mountains to work. He brought along a helper, things went well for about 48 hours then man, did they disolve into sludge covered bits of Mark's sanity. Turns out Handy Man has a drug problem Mark was unaware of. His biggest reason to head to the mountains was to detox. It turns out that is not a good thing to do. Handy Man was calling me at all hours to yell about things I had had no communication about. So I mentioned this to Mark who had a talk with Handy Man, which, I understand to have been quite explosive, and Handy Man left in the wee hours of the night. Left his helper with Mark, who relayed the explanation of Handy Man's over the top mood swings. He also left his tools, which Mark's hanging onto for another day.

So Mark will be gone an extra week so we can just get that stupid total headache of a house finished, sold and out of our lives. So, I'll have lots of free time once he makes it back home. Until then I'll be sneaking in knitting moments when PeeWee's not looking.

Since I have no pictures of knitting or anything knitting related, I'll cheer things up here a bit with the new 'do. I was looking a bit tired and raggedy around the edges so when I went for my regular 'highlight so the gray blends in' appointment I gave my stylist a thrill and told her she could cut the goldy locks.

Before:


After:


I've been told I look 10 years younger...