Persistent Knitter

After acquiring all that neat stuff Saturday and having a nice relaxing knitting get together (Yay - I got to meet Ingrid in person finally! And she was wearing her Flashy Lace. Even better!) - the weekend just got worse. My new laptop? Gone. I returned it. I was using it Sunday, had email open and was playing Solitare of all things and it CRASHED. No damn reason. Bye-bye laptop. It was nice knowing you.

And that was my birthday present this year! *pout* Dearest Husband says I should just get a different brand, but at this point I’m fed up with the idea of having to reinstall all my stuff for the 3rd time, and hope another one works. The real kicker of the whole thing? I’m now the proud owner of a Windows XP Home disk, because despite the fact that I returned the laptop and everything that came with it, because god-forbid-I-used-the-OS-for-more-than-two-seconds, they are making me buy the damn OS. Whee. Maybe I can use it as a coaster. A coaster that I paid $109.99 for. GRRRRRRR.

Oh yeah, this should be about knitting…
So what did I do knitting wise? Well, I did some knitting on Hardangervidda Saturday. I did one DPN of knitting on the evil Summer Solstice socks Saturday morning. I started to swatch for the Borg last night too, but didn’t get very far. Something about Hardangervidda must not like me. I checked my gauge again. *sigh*. (Did I mention I was grumpy?) I’m now getting 6.5 st/inch. (Pattern calls for 6/inch in case you weren’t following along)

insert picture of me running away screaming now

The sleeve looks lovely. It’s making a beautiful fabric, and the sleeve is fitting the intended arm perfectly. The problem is I don’t have enough yarn for a tighter gauge than what the pattern calls for. I didn’t take a picture of it yet because I was too depressed/upset/annoyed/you-name-it. So I took a step back. Being curious as to why the sleeve was fitting so well when the gauge was tighter, I remeasured DH. (and my daughter, because she thinks it really fun to be measured. She’s 36″ tall and her head circumference is 20″ in case you were curious) My wonderful husband has the chest/shoulders of an XL man, and his arms are a bit … shorter than the XL size for this sweater. That was why the first sleeve attempt looked so silly on him so soon (plus my gauge was also off the other direction). He doesn’t look out of proportion, but that’s what the measurements tell me! (He asked if he should start working out so his arms were beefier) Given that this is a drop shoulder (which actually makes things easier), I need to replan what size I’m making. I still need to do the body for the XL, but will do shorter sleeves, not really following the pattern in any one size. I’m tempted now to start the body (and rip the sleeve I already have) because I will want to know exactly how long to make the sleeves when I get up to the top, so I can insert the patterning in the right spot.

Meanwhile I’m going to play with colors for Ingeborg. I’m going to do my swatch in the round because I think it’ll be easier and more accurate if I actually decide to check my gauge. insert maniacal laughter here