I sewed in the morning. The only thing left to do is to put the elastic on. It is ready to go and I started to pin it on but there was something in the air that said wait. I went and made some tea. I have learned to listen to that voice when I sew. Every time I don't listen to that voice, I end up regretting it. New pants will be mine shortly but maybe not today. The sewing room sits over Keith's downstairs office and today is a work from home day. I try not to work on that side of the house when he is working.
After I stopped sewing for the day, I picked up my knitting. As much as I have been trying to stay monogamous to the Hacho sweater, I needed to knit on my grey sweater with the Mrs. Hunter's pattern.
When last you saw it, it looked like this.
I wasn't very happy with the fit. It felt as if it was too wide. The body is stockinette and I wondered about gauge. The Mrs. Hunter's pattern part is resolutely coming in at 5 stitches per inch. The stockinette gauge is 4 stitches per inch. That's a problem and I knew I had to do something. It was a hard decision but I pulled back to the underarm. I changed my needle size and my sweater now looks like this.
The debate now is do I do the garter stitch to border the pattern areas. I liked the way it looked at the divide between pattern and stockinette but where I had it beside the center front panel of lace, there was something wanting. The garter stitch band overwhelmed the pattern section. I was thinking about switching out the garter stitch for a reverse stockinette band. I have been waffling and trying to decide but this morning as I write, I know what to do. I am sticking with garter bands, but I am going to add a few purl stitches to my front patterning band. I will add two purl stitches between the garter stitch and the pattern at each side. The main body will stay stockinette. I am not sure if the pattern stitches will be done on 5mm needles or on the 4 mms I am using for the stockinette.
And then the day got worse. So much worse. I decided to wind some of the new yarn I got for Christmas. That shouldn't be bad and yet...
I pulled out a skein of the olive green grey brown glory that is Steam Trunk and started. I don't know what I did but it was a weird wind. The cake had a lot of bloopy bits so I thought it needed a rewind. It was looking good but as I started winding, a floop pulled up and pulled out the center from the original ball. Okay I thought. If I go slowly, I will see where the tension is pulling from and I can free the mess. When I picked up the cake to do so, the middle fell out to the floor, leaving about a quarter of the thing in my hands. I had about half of the yarn on the winder, a good size blob on the winding station, a blob on the floor and a part of the mess in my hands.
I wanted to take photos but my tablet was on the other side of the mess and I couldn't reach it. It took over 2 hours to wind it by hand to free itself from itself. And I still have no idea how the original cake got so messed up.
It was a day of feeling as if it was time to step away from things and doing other things that I should not have begun. It had its ugly bits. Oh well. The good is balanced by the bad overall and at some point I will have new sweaters and comfortable clothes to wear.
Today is baking day. There are bananas to use up in banana bread and it feels like a good day for a chicken pot pie with home made buns. I feel good about it and will be nice and cozy warm in the kitchen. Socks are good kitchen knitting between all these things, so socks it will be.
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