Girly Top: Forward, Collar

Finally managed to pick up the correct number of stitches last night.

Took about another hour, which is just pathetic. But in my defense I was watching TV, again, and kept stopping to actually watch the show. Then I would say, "oh, my goodness!" and get back to my knitting.

Anyway. I decided that I liked the look my work on the first neck edge (which is actually what you see in the picture). So I put a stitch marker after that batch of stitches.

Most of the back neck looked good as well, however it turned out I didn't pick up enough stitches, so I put a stitch marker at the area that could be fiddled.

The second neck edge was a lost cause.

It helped to realize I didn't have to squeeze all three missing stitches into the one neck edge. I was able to redistribute them across part of the back and the front.

Perhaps my method is too hit or miss.

Quadrants
Then, of course, the section of "Sweater Design in Plain English" I read this morning covered picking up stitches.

Righetti suggests dividing the section in half, then each half into halves. She points out it is easier to pick up a smaller number of stitches evenly across a smaller area.

And I went, duh. Because, of course, I knew that trick, and have applied it in the past. I just...forgot.

It seemed like such a smooth easy yarn I was working with. And the pattern even indicates how many stitches to pick up on each section of the neckline.

I was lulled into a false sense of security.

Collar Time
Hubby called me for dinner just as I was working my first few actual rows of the collar. I was also in the last few minutes of my show. But I halted both activities and tumbled downstairs.

It was just as well. After we finished eating I looked at my work and decided it looked too loose.

I was working on my US 4 needle when the smocking section on the body was worked on the US 3.

Switching straight to the smaller needle might have made and unpleasant and obvious change to the gauge. To avoid it I ripped back the three rows I'd worked by using the US 3 to pick up the first real row of knitting then pulling the US 4 out.

It was sort of slow going, but I didn't want to risk yanking the needle out, having stitches drop everywhere, and starting over again with picking up the stitches.

I was able to get back to the point where I could work the first few repeats of row 3 (which is the wrap row for the smocking) before bedtime.

The shame of it is there are only around 16 rows in the collar, from what I remember, so loosing those three rows of work was actually a significant percentage in this case.

I'm not going to worry about it, however, because it's only Wednesday and I've still got plenty of time.

My Apple!
A few weeks ago my mom and aunt came to town for a fund raising event for the Red Cross that featured chocolate dishes from local restaurants.

My aunt bid on, and won, an auction item. Which meant it was up to me to retrieve it for her.

Their office hours collided with my office hours, so the lady kindly agreed to meet me at 8 am today.

I was hoping to just leave the house for the day, but it turns out I'm not that coordinated in the morning.

Instead I had to leave then come home 10 minutes later to pack my lunch.

Of course this sent the puppies into a tizzy.

As I defended myself from Samson, I grabbed an apple out of the fruit bowl, crossed the kitchen to put it on the counter next to the sink, then crossed back to the other side of the room.

I didn't even realize the apple had rolled off the counter until I saw Baru running victory laps with it in his mouth.

He must have made four or five laps before I said, "I see you, Baru." Then he settled down in the green room and devoured his prize.

Samson was so busy dancing around me that he missed the entire thing.

There was another half apple in the bowl. Instead of eating it, I handed it over to Samson. I was intending to feed it to the pups anyway. It was cut a few days ago and was getting brown.

So instead of a nice piece of fruit for lunch, I have a lame spinach "salad," which is just spinach with dressing since I didn't have time to make a full salad.

sigh