I really have been bad at blogging. I’m sorry about that..

We will have a new contest winner, but I will be waiting to choose one since I didn’t blog much last month, so I will give a few posts this month, and run the contest from the 15th.  I have two packages ready to send, sorry they are late guys, but they are really good.  Michelle’s package was very difficult, because she doesn’t like spindles, and she has her own Shetlands, so i had to really dig around for her package lol.  Ems was hard, because she lives in Canada, so I boxed it all up and got to the post and realized that I was going to have to pay A LOT to ship it.  More than the package was worth, so I had to find new stuff to send, and get a big envelope.  I have finally gotten some nice stuff together for both of them, and now it’s just managing to get to the post. So be patient girls, it’s coming soon, I’ll let you know when it ships!

Trying to get the next issue ready, and still dealing with life. Darn life, keeps interrupting things.  I have the next issue to get done, and frankly it looks like it will be late this time.  I just had too much to get done, and people were so busy over Christmas that they didn’t send much in this time.  SO if you have anything neat (Like a chicken shaped tea cozy ahem, Em!)  please send me an email, I would love to include that, and any other fun projects.  Also if you have posted any tutorials or interesting discussion on your blogs, I will often use those too, so let me know.  The worse that will happen is that it will be so good it will make me look bad.  We have gotten a big surge in traffic since the Knitty article published, and apparently since Knitty linked ot us, Google now thinks we are pretty darned important.   SO, this is a great way to get more readers on your blog, or on your website.  Enough about that, here’s why I haven’t finished the next issue…

Elizabeth my 5 year old had to have umbilical repair surgery, she had a slight hernia, so they closed it up because it can apparently grow over her lifetime and become dangerous later. So that was fun. She has recovered nicely and is running around like normal. She managed to milk two red dinners out of it. Her favorite food is Sweet and Sour chicken, or Lemon/orange chicken. Her appetite was quite subdued for about 5 days afterwards, so we were trying to get her to eat well. All in all it wasn’t so bad, but I am so glad it’s over.

We have also been running the cold and flu marathon. All the kids and I have both had stomach flu and colds. December and up till now have been constant. That’s how it goes in a larger family though. Even Beau caught a cold this time, which despite his denial is rare. He is now recovering, while the rest of us caught it back at the beginning of Dec, so that’s how long it took him to catch it. Now we have all had it, and gotten over it, so hopefully cold/flu season will come to a close for the Jackson family.

Beau took my sweater too. I was knitting a sweater for Teresa, but now Beau is knitting a sweater for Teresa. We were in the waiting room for the surgery, and he of course didn’t bring any knitting. I of course brought four different projects, you know, so that I had just the right kind of knitting to do for my state of mind. You never know what kind of knitting you will want to do in a situation like this. You might want a difficult lace pattern that will keep your mind busy, even if you botch it. But then you might just want to knit as fast as you can and not think about anything at all. So, I couldn’t just leave him to sit there and stew over his poor little girl going into surgery.

So I gave him the sweater. He’s doing quite well, although his gauge has loosened up a little too much the last 10 rows or so. I am trying to decide if he should pull some of them out, because it really isn’t a big fit problem, but the material at that point is starting to look a bit sloppy and won’t hold the wind off as well.  It was supposed to be a straight up sweater,not sloping.  I knit them straight for the girls so that their skirts are accommodated without stretching the sweater.  So it was pretty much the right size at the pink stripe, a little big for growth.

What do you guys think? I don’t want to tell him, rip it back unless it really needs doing, he really doesn’t want to rip it back. But on the other hand there is a lesson to learn, and an important one. Better to rip back 10 rows now, then have a sweater that you aren’t happy with later.  He seems to think that the sweater will shrink or that he can felt it, but I think this is a bad idea.  It really is beautiful though, and he’s doing an excallant job.  I am not trying to pick on him, I just don’t want him to be mad at me later if it needed tearing back.  Even worse I don’t want to be mad at myself, because I am such a jerk about these things.

See, it doesn’t look too bad, this way.  I don’t know what to tell him to do.  If I tell him to rip, which is my gut feelings, he’s going to be annoyed.  If I tell him not to, then he’s likly to be way annoyed at himself and me.  Mostly I just had to have such a pretty little sweater not come out just right.  This is an EZ yokeless sweater, a perfect beginners sweater.  I love this pattern, but I’m concerned if he doesn’t correct this guage thing, where it can go.  For reference, the stitches above the pink color work are snug but loose (about perfect imo) on size 7 needles.  The last row fits easily on size 10 or 10.5 needles.  SO it is a big change.  I am thinking that he needs to learn to control the guage, and look at his work every few rows so that it stays on track.  Maybe I’m being overly picky, or to hard on him?  I am a perfectionist.  But then, it really isn’t too many rows, only about 5 or 10.

You can see the change better in this picture.  His knitting really is so good for this stage, and this is a perfect project for him, so I don’t want to discourage him, but I also don’t want the sweater to not fit or look right.  So you guys can help us to decide what to do with this project, and then we can feel better about the decision.

On my knitting, I have almost finished the fingerless gloves.  Pics of that soon.