s m i t t e n 4 m i t t e n s

Prepare yourself for a long post, probably my longest post yet! :-)

I'm sure you all have been stuck in rush hour traffic. It's stop and go all the way there and it seems like you're never going to make it to your destination then there's a break in traffic and you're cruising happily along again and suddenly BOOM, it's all backed up. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I seem to be forever stuck on the one sleeve of my seamless baby sweater, even though I'm making progress I can't seem to get the damn thing finished.
Last week I finally picked up a set of dpn and I was going to attempt to knit on 3 needles. As I may have mentioned in a previous post I botched the sleeve when I knit it all onto 2 needles not realizing that you actually needed 4. I've never been great at fixing my mistakes, it's an important skill that I lack and hope to one day master. I can rip it back, but as soon as I drop any stitches I'm completely lost. So, I waited all week for the weekend and consulted my mother-in-law Rhonda for help. I will say that before I get her to help me, I always try to fix it myself first...Unfortunately I usually end up screwing it up more.
After our visit on Saturday, I took it home all excited that I could finally finish a sleeve and I got to the decorative row, threw it in and then after it was finished I realized that I should've purled instead, bahhh! So I ripped it out all by myself and started again but then something in the pattern didn't come out right. I waited for Rhonda to bring Paisley back Sunday night for more help, Arrrgg. Paisley and her finally arrived and she set me straight again. I guess I picked up an extra stitch some how on each needle when I was purling my decorative row in. Now, I'm really hoping Sunday night's the night that I'm going to get my first sleeve done. Knitting on 3 needles wasn't really too hard at all. I'm now down to the knitty gritty (pun intended)...and I've started my garter rows and everything's perfect except that I forgot to do my decreasing on the last stockinet stitch row. Fudge!
I stared to go back again to my last row of ss so I could do the decreasing when all of a sudden all of the stitches slipped off one of the other needles. I tried to pick them all up, but now it's all bunged up and ofcourse....Now I need help yet again.
To top it all off...I'm pretty sure that I won't have enough of the yarn to finish the project, but we'll see...it's going to be cutting it pretty close though.
I guess tonight I'll be working on my scarf or maybe even trying to practice sock knitting techniques before the Olympics start, I haven't decided yet. I guess it doesn't really matter as long as I'm knitting! :-)

On a brighter note!
It was another wonderful day in Southern Ontario. Paisley and I took advantage of it and went to the park then stopped over to the Library. Paisley had a blast there. They have a little play corner at the library with all kinds of toys, games and puzzles. There was also a little play kitchen fully equipped with sink, stove and dishes (teapot & all), so while I sat and watched her play, she made me about 10 cups of tea and kept asking me (it was so cute) "Do you want a cuppatea Mama?" She was quite the little hostess, also making me eggs, mashed potatoes and cookies. We were probably there for about an hour playing. I think she was more interested in playing rather than picking out books. We ended up choosing a few books and some DVD's to watch at home. I think I watched "The Big Comfy Couch" video about 3 times today. Something that I thought was funny was that we also borrowed a "Strawberry the Shortcake" DVD and when you open it up (in traditional Strawberry the Shortcake style) it smells like strawberry goodness. I couldn't believe that they actually scented the inside of a DVD case!







More of these pictures to come!