The children are our future.

So I was sitting in the dojang last night, waiting for the family class to finish so the adult class could start, and I pulled out my knitting. And panicked. Have you ever had that feeling when you realize, you have no idea where you were in the pattern and you realize you may need to start the entire damn thing over? Of course you're scared because it took you this long to pick the damn UFO -back- up and now, if you have to rip out even further back, well hell, you might as well just rip out the whole thing and use the yarn for something else!

So I sat there and stared at it for a good long time. I counted the stitches at least four times and made sure, yup, 60 live stitches on the bottom of that cuff. I pondered... I couldn't understand why on one cuff, the stitches were perfect and on the other, it seemed that I had started a short row. Was this an error? Had I dropped stitches? Was I on crack? As I sat and really began to wonder about my sanity in picking back up this project, a girl (about 12 or 13) sat down next to me on her water break and said:

Girl: "That's cool."
Me: "Thanks."
Girl: "What are you making?"
Me: "Socks. This is the cuff."
Girl: "It is hard? You look worried."
Me: *blink* "No it's not hard, and I didn't realize I looked worried. I was just trying to remember where I was in the pattern."
Girl: "Why didn't you just write it down? I do the same thing with my taekwondo forms so I remember where I am. Especially, like, before school breaks because then, I know where I was when I come back and I don't forget."

With that she smiled and jumped back up to finish her class.

That girl is a genius! When I knew I just wasn't going to be working on these socks for a while, why didn't I just mark where I was in the pattern? I sat there and pondered that then calmly looked at the pattern to figure out where I was and made a check mark right near the row it was now painfully obvious I was on. Genius I tell you!

So once that was all sorted out, I cast on and started working on the toe. And that's when I remembered, I really dislike this yarn. Oh yeah. That's the other reason I put this project down, I hate this yarn. Can't stand it. That look must have been obvious too because once again, my little friend was there.

Girl: "What's wrong now?"
Me: "Oh I'm beginning to realize, I really am not happy with this yarn."
Girl: "But you put all that work into it already. You're not going to give up are you?"
Me: *blink*
Girl: "You know, cuz I really didn't like the form I had before this one but if I had, like, given up, I wouldn't have the belt I have now."
Me: *blink*
Girl: "So finish them because you can't give up, cuz then you'll be all upset and you won't know what to do and then you won't do anything else. And, like, that's stupid."
Me: *blink* "Good point. Thanks."

The whole rest of the evening, I thought about what that girl said. She's right you know. I've agonized over these socks for a long time now. No more! I'll finish them and wear them proudly.

And then I'll thank her.

Socks done. On to a UFO...

I finished my travel project... socks. I just love taking socks with me to work. They're small, easy to work on and of course, I get all sorts of "oooohs" and "aaaaahs" when I'm working on them. :P So here they are, a quick pair of ankle socks:



I have really come to like ankle socks... especially with the weather here. It's supposed to be in the 70's for part of the time next week!

So true to my word (well mostly) I decided before I started anything, I would work on a UFO. I pulled out the Cut Your Teeth Socks I was working on... many, many moons ago. I sat there and stared at them.

Just stared.

I had no inclination to knit them. None.

I have come to the conclusion that I really dislike cuff down socks. Yup. Can't stand em.

So how do I fix this? Well... frog it! And start over with toe up. But I've kept the cuffs though. I'll graft them using a three needle bind off.

So here we go...:



Brace yourself...:



Okay you can open your eyes now...:



Voila! Now to start over. ;)

I give you Tubey.... soon!

Yeah, I know... I said I'd be done with this by now but dammit... Eric and I bought a copy of Civilization III for a mutual Valentine's day gift and neither of us have done much else since that day.

So this week I decided it was time to get back to my knitting. Mostly because Eric accidentally took the disk with him. Tee hee!

So I got to work with a fury last night on Tubey. Here's the progress so far:



I just started the last color stripe. So only 16 rounds of the Carolina Blue, then round and round of black until I'm done. I can't wait to put this sweater on. I've decided not to put a bit of waste yarn in the stitches so I can try it on. No... I'm waiting for any and all disappointment/joy to hit all at once. I'm sure it will be joy though. It's just coming out great!

Of course, my socks are doing well as well. Socks are just such a great work/travel project. Sorry about the bad pic though... (damn camera phone):



Oh and I realized it's been a while since I posted so you all don't know about Fang. She's 100% healthy again. Princess Piddles has lost her crown. Here she is at the vet:



She was -not- coming out of that carrier. Nope. I thought I was going to have to disassemble the carrier just to get her out when the vet came in the room, but Fang finally popped out. She was not happy at all. Little does she know... she and Trouble have to go back on the 17th for their yearly check up and shots. Oh she's going to hate me something fierce...

On the holy cow, that's nifty side of life, I had this arrive in my office today:



One of the 4th year medical students gave it to me as a thank you for all the help I've given her this year. Yup, a card and genuine Columbian coffee and chocolate... from Columbia. She picked it up while she was there on a rotation. Now I guess I need to start drinking coffee...

Oh well, lunch time! Time to go knit.