I’m still sick and haven’t knitted for over a week. It’s a tragedy. My little brother and his wife and her family are arriving tonight. I have to do my taxes still and I’m making 32 bridal shower invitations for a client (which I will post a picture of later). At least it’s been beautiful out, and the lilacs and tulips are blooming:

I’m sick sick sick and have been since last Saturday. Fever, sore throat from hell, chocking cough. I don’t remember the last time I was this sick. I haven’t been able to do anything, not even knit, now that’s sick! I have watched a whole lot of TV, however, so if you missed your favorite show this week, let me know and I’ll likely be able to update you. I don’t sleep more than a couple of hours at a time because it hurts tremendously when I swallow, so that wakes me, and there’s the violent cough that doesn’t seem to care whether I’m asleep or awake, it must come out when it must. I’m a big slobbering baby right now. That is all.

It’s my birthday so I can do whatever I want and eat whatever I want and the calories don’t count. That’s how it works, right?

I realized that it was shortly after my birthday last year when everything started going terribly wrong in my world. A week after my birthday my grandmother died and less than 3 months after that my other grandmother died. Then my car was stolen and I got shingles, which sucks. Then San Diego caught on fire and for a couple of days we thought we were okay because it was all so far away, when suddenly there was smoke and ash over our little valley and we were evacuated for three days, and could only head east. The only thing to the east was El Centro, which, no offense to the kind residents of that town, is kind of an armpit. But the people at the Ramada Inn were very nice and let us keep our dogs and cats in our room with us, and they didn’t charge us the full rate. Which was good because at that point we thought our house was probably all gone and it was just a horrible night. I sat in the Denny’s next to the hotel at 3 in the morning trying to read a book and not break into sobbing tears at the thought of all that we would have lost. Happily, we found out the next day that our house was still standing and our town was safe, but we weren’t able to go back for two more days. I thought at that point that I should really try to become a pessimist, so I could be better prepared for all this crappy stuff, but I just couldn’t do it. I kept slipping back into my optimist ways.

In January I thought that the New Year would mean the end to major problems for a while, but my car (which was recovered after it was stolen, but damaged and in the shop for a month) died one night on the way home from work, only a couple weeks after spending a large amount of money to fix it. Other than that, though, life has improved except for this morning the toilet overflowed. I hope it’s not a sign of things to come.

On to knitting content, progress is being made on the Farmer’s Market Bag:

I added in the purple, which, according to the pattern should have replaced the lighter pink, but because it’s the same value as the darker pink I decided to pattern it that way. And I tried out the orange yarn that I got for the little duplicate stitch flecks, which I like, and think will look good when felted. I could only find one other person on the whole internet making the same bag, Carrie is doing hers in completely different but really beautiful colors.

And lastly, I leave you with a little picture of Spring:

I was very excited to finish the star on the baby sweater, and looked at the directions to see what the next step was. I was supposed to continue knitting in st st until the front measured 9.5 cm from the beginning of the armhole. So I carefully measured and surprisingly, it was already at 11 cm from the beginning of the armhole. I re-read the directions carefully, thinking that I must have really messed something up, but it said very clearly to start working the chart after 10 rows of stockinette, which put the star an inch too high. Hmmph. I think I should have started working the chart immediately after finishing the ribbing. I couldn’t see anyway around it, so instead of posting a brilliant picture of my finished front, you will just have to imagine a little pile of blue yarn, looking forlorn and sad. I couldn’t face it again this weekend, so I moved on to another project:

It’s the Farmer’s Market Bag from Weekend Knitting. Instead of an intarsia knit star in tiny cotton yarn, I’m doing a fair isle patterned-bag in thick wool. It’s my first attempt at felting, I’m using Lamb’s Pride Worsted, and doubling it. By the time I was done with this little bit my hands were all dry and rough and I think I’m getting a callous between my right pinkie and ring fingers from the yarn rubbing. Is that normal? Or am I just weird?

I think I might be a little weird. The other day the husband and I were driving somewhere and I had a sneezing attack. He looked over at my arms and asked, “Why do you have goose bumps?” “Because I was sneezing, duh!”. I thought everyone got goose bumps when they sneezed. Apparently not. Interesting.

Also, for a very bad picture of my finished First Sweater Ever, click here.
It’s not really a flattering sweater (did I mention that before? I don’t remember), and it’s enormous, but it’s comfy and snuggly, so I’m happy with it. I imagine I’ll be wearing it a lot on cold winter nights when I get home from work and throw on a pair of sweats and thick socks and have no one to impress.

Progress is being made on the star sweater:

The original is black with a light blue star. I thought black was a bit dreary for a baby, so I went with a medium-dark blue instead. I originally hoped for a chartruese-y green for the star, but my LYS didn’t have anything of the sort. I like the light blue now that I’ve gotten the two colors knit together.

Tonight I don’t have to do anything, no deadlines, no meetings, no working late, so I’m going to knit knit knit and watch TV. Of course I could mop the disgusting kitchen floor or finish up the last few piles of laundry, but why ruin a perfectly good evening?

Just for PT*), our Very Bad Dog who manages not to get sent to the Humane Society just because he’s so darn cute and is always so repentant when caught doing Very Bad Things:
Good Bear
Note the blurry wagging tail.

And this is what he does when he picks up a random object (a stick or a bone, or in this case, a toy):
Prancing Bear
He prances around and looks at you to make sure you see that he is the smartest, coolest dog ever because he has a stick/bone/toy in his mouth, and you must chase him right now.

Besides playing with my dumb dog, doing laundry and cleaning the house, I did some knitting this weekend and worked on some art for a round-robin project I’m participating in. There are 11 of us in our round-robin, and we each made a color themed journal. I worked in the Lavendar and Green one this weekend, and I’m pretty happy with how my pages worked out:
Page One
Page Two

Knitting-wise I don’t have any pictures, but I finally finished my First Sweater Ever. I re-did the neck and followed the pattern, which consisted of several decreases as you work your way up. And then it said to bind off loosely. I thought I bound off loosely, but apparently I bound off very very tightly, because I could barely get it over my head, and when I did, it just looked stupid. So I ripped it out once again, and re-knit it straight, with no decreases, and I bound off really really loosely and now it’s all good. It’s a good thing I finished my lovely WOOL sweater, because it was 80 degrees this weekend.

I worked on the sweater I’m making for my new nephew. It’s this one:

from Rowan’s Pipsqueak’s Book. The back is finished, and I’m up to the armholes on the front. The star is looking really cute so far. I haven’t done much color knitting, and this yarn is so fine and smooth that I’m worried about weaving the ends in around the star. Any knitter’s out there have any tips?