What's Up?

Is mercury in retrograde? Are all the planets not aligned properly? What is the issue today?!?!?!

First, I know I haven't posted since last Wednesday. Friday was a little hectic for me and I didn't really knit too much over the weekend. After I had done my running around in the morning on Friday, and having lunch with Lisa, I jetted up to AC Moore to get some stuff for Christmas gifts. While I was there I picked up a skein of Patons SWS colorway Natural Slate. I had spotted it and decided I wanted to do a hat for myself since the cooler weather is upon us now. I knew this was going to be a very quick knit so I didn't hesitate. Plus, I fell in love with the beautiful gray coloring and I rememberd my sis writing on her blog that gray this season is the new black.

Anyway, after I got home on Friday night, I sat down with CPH to work on the button band. I had decided that since the hood was going to need seaming I was just going to knit the bands seperately. So the pattern told me to pick up 150 stitches evenly across the left front. I thought no problemo. I've picked up stitches before. Well let me tell you, I started at the tippy top of the hood and picked up all the way down to the tinsy tiny bottom stitch of the ribbing and I only managed to pick up 104 stitches. Hmmmmm (I said to myself). I looked closely at what I had done and noticed that everthing laid flat. So what did I do? I went ahead and took charge of my knitting and said "Who needs to pick up 150 stitches?". I managed to completed 6 rows of the ribbing before I put it away for the night. I was happy to be one step closer to finishing CPH.

After I hit the gym Saturday morning, I sat down to finish up my CPH. I looked down at the ribbing edge where the button band started and noticed that the band was curved up, even though I picked up stitches in the tinsy tiny last knot of the bottom stitch. I said "Hmmmmm". I immediately dialed 911 for help! That's my sis of course. After her and I had a lengthy conversation about picking up stitches I tore everything out that I had done the night before to start all over. Mary Beth told me another way to pick up stitches and I have to say it turned out beautifully in the end. But the drama doesn't end here. I went about picking up the stitches again for the second time. I was very careful and battled the new way of doing this to get my stitches that I needed. When I was done I did a stitch count not once, not twice, but three times and guess what I came up with? 188 stitches picked up. I pondered on what to do. It looked beautiful. No puckering anywhere, nothing looked wrong. So again I decided to take charge of my knitting and decided "Who needs 150 stitches when 188 does just as good, if not better, for me?" By the end of Saturday I had the left side of the button band completed. I was going to leave the right one for Sunday.

When Sunday came my knitting plans changed a bit. Instead of doing the right button band of CPH, I decided to start my SWS Hat. It's very simple with a ribbing band and then stockinette stitch on top. By the time my train pulled into Long Island at 5pm, I was into my decrease rows. SWS will be done by the weekend no doubt.

Did I knit Monday?!?!?! Believe it or not I only knitted a couple of rows on my Provence Throw. Nothing to brag home about. Tuesday I picked up my Chevron Scarf again while I was at work. Between yesterday and today I am up to 55.5". I got very excited today because the light pink yarn finally crossed over to the other side of the scarf. I couldn't believe it! It's been teasing me and teasing me and then BAM it's there.

Last night I did pick CPH back up. I wanted to at least pick up the stitches before I went to bed. Let me tell you. I had issues with this. I don't know what was going on with me but knitting was not working out for me last night. At first I did not pick up enough stitches, so I had to fix that and I eventually did (after counting 188 stitches about 20 times to ensure I had the right amount). Once I was assured I had my correct number I followed the pattern and started off with a P2. I got all the way to the bottom of the band and noticed that the P2K2's didn't align with the left side. So I backed off the 188 stitches I just did and started with a K2 this time. When I reached the bottom of the button band I noticed that I was ending with a P2 instead of a K2. I said "What the heck?!?!". I counted my pairs to just ensure I actually did have the 188 stitches cause at that point I just wasn't sure of anything anymore. While doing this, when I got back to the beginning of the row I noticed that four stitches in I did two K2's instead of one. So this left me backing off almost 188 stitches, again. By this time my fingers were hurting from doing the picking up stitches part. I was so frustrated as I was backing off, but was determined to get it fixed before I went to bed. Needless to say, I managed to fix my problem and knit 6 rows.

Tonight after work I resolved myself to finishing the right button band. And I did! I took awesome photos to show you all. I am quite proud. The two sides line up perfectly. All the knitting is done and now I just have to seam the hood and sleeves.

So you are probably wondering where are the pics of these projects? After reading all this text I would be wondering. Well remember all the way at the beginning of this post when I asked if mercury was in retrograde or something? Well my knitting issues that I've been having didn't end there. I was now having computer issues. At first I couldn't get my computer to recognize my external hardrive, where I have all my pictures saved. After 15 minutes of tinkering I fixed it but then I couldn't get my computer to recongize my camera to transfer these pictures. After another 15 minutes or so I managed to get the pics off my camera onto my computer. I was sooooooo relieved! Oh but it's not over. I went to upload my pictures to this post and Blogger is having issues with picture uploads right now and just so ya'll know "They are aware of this problem and are working on resolving the issue".

So there you have it. There are no pictures with this post. I am so sad about it because everything is looking great. Hopefully tomorrow everything will be back to normal.