Knit and the City

The response to Team Philly has been overwhelming! (Ok, one - but hey, two will make a team), and I think that if I build it, they will come. So, tomorrow, look for a button on the sidebar that will link to Team Philly, and let's show those Jamaican bobsledders from Wales what we can do! Come on Knitser Chelle! Knitty D - I know you're in, and I know you must want a button!

As the Olympics approaches, I'm quickly packing in my in progress projects - have to clear the brain to go for the gold. Here is Ene (which could also be pronounced Een as in mean, but I'm still voting for my pasta pick):

I have one more repeat to go on Chart 3, and then Chart 4, and I will see the finish line. I was working on it a bit last night, and made a fairly glaring mistake towards the center of the work. I fixed it this morning, but it's still noticeable. But, doing a cost benefit analysis, I think I'm going to have to live with the mistake, because my unknitting skills need a little work . . .

And, speaking of cost benefit - if you ever have a heating/cooling guy in your basement fixing your furnace, and he looks at your water heater and says, that's going to blow, you really need to replace it - maybe you should listen to him instead of thinking he's just trying to milk another job out of you. Yep, big ol' flood in my basement this weekend. Uch. So, the theme of this weekend was ripping. Ripped out the water heater, ripped out the carpet, and 8 bags of garbage that followed the water induced carnage. Sat. morning I found myself on the way to Home Depot with my crackhead contractor (and who else would I employ but a crackhead contractor considering who I let do my cleaning), who wasn't looking so good, listening to him explain how he was throwing his life in the toilet. And, I thought I left my client's at the office, sheesh! Then, when I left him in my house to fix the water heater (it's ok, calm down - his nephew is a cop, I know where to find him), I went to Grace's top down class, where I am building a top down V-neck raglan dress with bell sleeves and a braided bottom. Can you picture it? Of course not, but it's in my head (the last time I heard that one was from a client who thought his sister was out to get him, and we said, well, move, and he said, "she's in my head!!!!!"" anyway . . .). I'll put a skematic up soon - and that's really what the pattern should be called, because it's much more of a construction project, and Grace is like my contractor.

Did I ever tell you my mom calls me "fast and wrong" (well, that's when she's not calling me, "take me bring me buy me get me.") Well, that again proved true at Top Down class. Once my neck yoke was done, did I accept Merrill's offer of a longer needle to see if the thing fit. Oh no, I shoved it right over my head, pulling out half the front stitches. Grace to the rescue - or so I thought. Grace picked up the stitches, but as she was so distracted by our wit and cheery conversation, she turned my circular work into a moebius, which I didn't discovery until four rows later. Uch! Thanks for unknitting and reknitting Grace - we both thought I was back on track, didn't we!

But, oh no, my remedial math skills came blaring to the forefront. When we figured out the rate of increase for the V neck, we did so based on the number of stitches originally cast on to the back (44), and half of what was needed on each side of the V in the front (22). For whatever reason, when I got to 22 stitches on each side, I stopped reducing, and joined the work. Ummm . . . that didn't take into consideration the increasing going on in the back. What I was supposed to do was knit 35 rows, increasing 3x per 5 row repeat, so that when I got to row 35, the stitches would be the same in the front and back. Instead, I was down like 20 stitches. Uch! Out the whole thing came. But, Rome wasn't built in a day, and this dress won't be either.

But, the Team Philly group blog will be - construction will begin tonight!