A Look Back (or is it a look forward...)

I have been trying all morning (for the past 3 hours) to some degree of success to blog. It is taking a very, very, very long time for the server to upload 5 stinking pictures. Normal people would give up, but not me. I’m blogging to keep from cleaning. I’m cleaning to keep from grading papers. I’m trying not to grade papers because that will remind me that today really and truly is the last day of Winter Break. Tomorrow I will have to go back to work where I will spend part of the day in meetings discussing how I’m not a “real teacher” and therefore my job is expendable (I am and it’s not). The other part of the day will be spent finishing grades and entering them into the computer. This is the part that will be most gruesome because there are more than several children who will be failing my class and more than a few parents who will want to know why even though I gave their kid 15 kajillion chances to make stuff up and sent home 30 copies of their progress report which were never signed nor returned (big surprise there). But how could this happen? I really don’t want to think about dealing with parents. Or about picking music for festival. I want to think about MLK Holiday in 3 weeks and GMEA conference that same week (essentially I will work 2 days that week bringing my total working days for January to a whooping 19). Oh and then there’s the 6th grade concert thrown in there. Hmmm…no wonder I want a distraction. To help me I’m breaking out all my current projects to take an inventory of how things are going.

First we have the tiger eye lace scarf I started using Bernat Softee Baby in Pale Blue and Sensations Persian in Blue Multi. Notice anything?
Like the fact that you can’t see the stinking pattern?!?! Here let me help you…

My fingers mark where you should be able to see the tiger eyes. I’m disappointed but not defeated. I’ve frogged the whole thing once so I think I’m going to frog it again and start all over. Something simple, something that will show off the yarn and not the pattern. Maybe a long rolled edge scarf. Plain vanilla stockinette stitch. The problem is I’m having a really hard time bringing myself to do it. I mean, this was my first time using a chart and I was doing it (granted I couldn’t see a dang thing I was working on) and the yarn felt so good and worked fairly easily… Rats. Oh well, even Rome eventually fell.

This is The Boyfriend Hat on the DPNs. Only a slight problem with these. Do you see how close they are to the edge of those needles?!?! My solution involves turning a wine cork into 4 tiny needle saver/plug thingies to keep the stitches from sliding off. This will involve lots of changing of the corks as I work but it’s better than losing this project due to dropped stitches.

And finally I give you the mauve sweater.

This is my first attempt at a sweater (or anything of this scale) and it has been an epic undertaking. Like a year and half epic. I have students who saw me knitting this when they were in 6th grade and I doubt I will be finished when they leave 8th grade this year. It is currently the best thing I have going for me since I keep making stupid silly mistakes (mostly from not paying attention) as I knit the Zig Zag scarf (too many stitches, too few, and why is the yarn looped over the outside of the scarf like that...). There is only one tiny, tiny mistake in the sweater:

I have no idea how this happened. It’s like my needles picked up a stitch from the row below (and to the right) and magically moved them up and over…who knows. I can’t for the life of me figure out what I did, how I did it, or why it happened. I do know one thing though. It isn’t coming out. I’m not ripping back that far. I’m not taking my sweater apart to fix it. I don’t know how to fix it with a crochet hook, darning needles, or DPNs. It’s on the very edge of the sweater and you can barely see it. In fact, if you aren’t looking you might (:::cross fingers:::) miss it. Plus, this isn’t for me nor was it designed for anyone I know. I had intended for this to be a “charity project” (you know, the one you start by thinking, This is my first attempt. If it doesn’t work out I can give it to charity. If I like it, I’ll keep it.). However, any suggestions to fix it will be considered. For now I'm off to try and keep my cat from eating my pizza.