I'm Bummed!

For several reasons.

First: Now that I have the Cascading Leaves Shawl done (pictures forthcoming), I decided to cast on for my Celtic Vest. I made one of these last year and accidentally felted it. I bought some really cool yarn on our Chicago Yarn Crawl at Lorna's Laces. It started out really nice, but then the yarn started pooling. The Celtic Vest Pattern is designed to be knit using 2 balls at one time tp avoid pooling. Like I said, it started out looking really nice, I even made sure to start my balls of yarn in different parts of the color repeats. Maybe they were still too close. Anyway, when I noticed the pooling, I thought maybe I had done something wrong because partway through I had decided to try a little continental knitting. Will get into that more later. So I ripped back to before the pooling and re-knitted the area. Started pooling again at the same spot. I have set it aside until I figure out if I want to use different yarn, or rip it and restart with the yarns repeats even further apart. Still thinking on that. Any ideas??

Secondly: I picked back up my Cul-de-Sac Vest last night by Elsebeth Lavold. I was having problems with the decreasing for the armholes, and set it aside until I had the heart to trying figuring it out. I got the pattern from a 2003 Knitter’s magazine and am now wondering if there is errata out there somewhere or if the pattern has been reprinted in another magazine/book at some other point. I found what I think is an error when working on the back. After joining the 2 bottom flaps and finishing charts C&D, it said I should have 142 stitches. Then beg. increasing 2 stitches every 6th row, 6 times for under the armpits. After doing that increase, according to the pattern I should have 138 stitches. Which is obviously doesn't add up, so I chose to ignore that part and just knit on. However, I am now on the arm hole decreases and my numbers don’t match the next set either, so now I’m not sure if i have done something wrong or if the pattern is again wrong. Not sure if I should rip back to the before the armholes or just plug ahead and again ignore the numbers. I did determine that the armhole decrease numbers are based on the 138 stitches. When I do the math based on the 142 stitches, I figured I should have 154 stitches after the increases and 104 after the armhole decreases. I have one more set of decreases to make and my stitch count now is 98. So something definitely wrong. I have contacted 2 people on Ravelry who have finished the vest to ask for their opinions/help and I tried contacting Elsebeth Lavold to find out about the errata. But I'm pretty sure regardless of what they say, I still have to rip back.

Third: On the way home last night from knit I stopped at Taco Bell for a snack, because I had skipped dinner. I went through the drive thru and was getting my money out to pay, because I was next in line to pay, when the pick-up in front of me backed up and hit the front of my car. Luckily the only damage done was to my bumper. Her Reece trailer hitch holder broke a hole in the center of the plastic bumper. Since we weren't in the street, the police won't do a report, so I had to contact her insurance company directly. I'm not mad that she did it, just mad that I just had that stupid thing fixed from when I rearended someone a month or 2 ago. GRRRRR.

Fender Bender

What a nice cap to an already crappy day.

-Bad day at work (End of month Rush)
-Family tragedy for a friend
-Fender Bender on the way home from Knit Group.

I failed to notice the car in front of me had stopped or was stopping to do a left turn. By the time I noticed, it was too late to avoid hitting, but I was able to swerve so that it wasn't a full-on rear end collision. I clipped her bumper as I swerved to the left. Luckily no one was in the on-coming lane. No one was hurt, no airbags deployed, but the front right side of my car got pretty squashed. Although I was surprised to note that the head light still worked after being busted out. Since my car was making a funny noise I pulled over on a cross street. At first I thought the other car had just left, but she returned shortly. She went up the hill and turned around. She thought I was driving off when I turned onto the other road. I called 911; first time and hopefully the last I ever have to do that. The cops came. I know someone was either smiling on me or took pity on me at least after my bad day, because I did not get a ticket. Was sure I would, because I knew it was my fault. I didn't come right out and say the words "officer it was my fault" but I was very upfront about admitting that I failed to notice she was turning. I was able to drive the car home.

I found out later, after meeting my dad in the auto mechanics parking lot, that funny noise was because something was rubbing on the drive belt. The body shop owner advised me this morning not to drive it any further than I already had. The insurance towing service will be picking it up tomorrow to take it to the body shop. The owner said he could work on it next week.

And to top it off, I had to finish washing the dishes that my Mom started at 11:30pm.