JessaLu Knits (and Spins!)

…my daughter (Dobby) is now insisting I no longer exist, refuses to tell me her friend’s name (you know - the one who is going to be a fiber millionaire-ess), still won’t speak to me (which is actually a blessing - sssshhhhh), has hidden my Pride & Prejudice DVD’s (little does she know - I copied them to my laptop! HAHAHA!), will only eat frozen pizza and has a new best friend, Aaron.

And we still have no milk.

But I’ve got a bitchin’ sweater!!!

I am now officially in love with this garment. I can’t believe how well it fits - IT. FITS. Did I mention that I didn’t try this thing on until I was done? UNHEARD OF. It’s like I taunted the knitting gods and somehow came out on top. Freaky weird. That, like, NEVER happens. I just know it’s going to bite me on the ass at some point. *sigh*

I have to admit, during the last hours of knitting The Sweater (as it shall be hereafter referred) I was building up a healthy dose of hate for it. The hood? Took me like TWO DAYS. Did I mention that it is Kitchenered across the top? That’s 56 stitches that needed to be grafted. FIFTY. SIX. I only screwed up twice but you know what? Odds are I’ll never wear the hood up so no one but me, RR, Dobby and the neighbors (the ones who heard me screaming) will know about it. So, even though I seriously hated The Sweater during the last hours I now love it. L.O.V.E. it. Do you think people will notice if I wear it for a week straight? ;o)

Wanna know what I did while I knit this? I didn’t really begin knitting The Sweater ‘in earnest’ until Wednesday. At that point the television was not allowed to be on - which totally pissed Dobby off but you know what? When she pays the damned bill she can have it on all she wants. Reading a frickin’ book won’t kill her. I spent the next four days with earphones plugged into my ears alternating between Memoirs of a Geisha (got 80% through it - 18 hours of spoken word) and watching P&P (the A&E version). I watched P&P straight through - twice. On my laptop - which was very cool because I noticed a lot of little details that were lost to me when I watched it on the TV (because I am blind. and vain. Which means I can’t see a damned thing half the time). Like, when Lizzy is completely bad-mouthing Darcy during the ‘assemblies’ (okay that’s probably spelled wrong, sorry) he can usually be seen in the background. That’s the only thing I can remember right now, but there’s a lot that can be seen going on in the background. Oh, and his ‘loving, smoldering looks’ are WAY more intense up close. *sigh* oh, *ahem* sorry. I also got caught up on Cast-On (six episodes) and listened to a few new knitting podcasts. Having the headphones on lets me focus, shuts out a lot of the sounds around me and I swear, makes me knit faster. It also keeps family members from talking excessively and screwing up my counting ;o)

So, if all my comments are to be believed I think I might have earned a gold medal…? I’m going to wait until I hear from the higher-ups before I get all excited but hell…that’d be pretty cool.

Finished about two minutes ago.

So where do I get the button that says “I tried my best but fell short by two hours and forty-eight minutes”? Maybe I should have chosen something with bigger gauge. Or, maybe I should have stayed up until 5am last night instead of 3am.

It was the hood that done me in - damned thing is about as big as knitting half the body. I also had never done set-in sleeves before or sewn a seam. All the sweaters I’ve done so far were knit in the round. So, this was very much a challenge for me on many levels - nevermind that the gauge was 4.5 stitches to the inch on size 7’s.

Oh well. At least I have a sweater out of the whole thing. I’ll post more details later - I need a nap. See below & extended entry for details & more photos.

But first…there’s one more thing I must do… *goes over to sidebar, rips down timer, throws it on the ground and jumps up and down on it a few times*. There. I feel much better now.

As a public service, I thought I would share with all KO parents of
teens the lines I have used to keep the child (aka Dobby) at bay while trying to
complete the project from hell my KO project in case you are having trouble coming up with snappy brush offs:

• I’m not really here, you are imagining me.
• helloooo figments of your imagination cannot actually speak so move on.
• um ripping here! No I do not care that your friend’s eleventeen year old third cousin fourteen times removed is marrying a 65 year old millionaire who owns a…waitaminute he owns a sheep farm in upstate NY? Which friend, again?
• Mommy can’t talk until Monday.
• I said, don’t talk to me until Monday!
• I’m sorry, do you think I joke when I say “don’t talk to me until MONDAY“?
• YES THIS COMING MONDAY.
• Listen, if you talk to me again I’ll lock you in your…ohwait I can’t, you don’t have a DOOR!! muahahaha!*
• There’s no talking in the Olympics!
• What do I look like? Your caregiver? Go buy your own milk!
• NO you cannot watch ‘Fresh Prince of Bel Air’ (ugh. gagme.) Mommy is watching Pride & Prejudice and Darcy is on camera right now so BACK. THE HELL. OFF.
• Two words: Frozen. Pizza.
• You want to sleep over at your friend Erin’s? SUUURE!!! (the problem now is…I’m not sure if she meant the boy Aaron or the girl Erin…oopsies) (KIDDING, PEOPLE! …mostly)

Thank you all for your words of encouragement - they are much appreciated! I’m sure you all can understand that I haven’t been answering you all individually because my hands are permanently attached to my Addi’s ;o)

The mistake, for those who couldn’t see it, was that I skipped an ENTIRE row of the chart so I had wonky diamonds. It shall all become clear when I post photos of the completed sweater…sometime next freaking month.