How to get back on an even keel?

#1 Read about a very touching love story.

#2 Get and pass on a “chain letter” about women friends and appreciation of them. And end up chatting a little with three of them!

#3 Get an IM at work about what do I want for lunch? They’re buying it today. That was random and nice.

#4 Think about the progress I made last night on my merletto mitts (from the *june* FGF knit along/KAL)

I picked it up while watching the Bones premiere and first I wasted a good amount of time unnecessarily frogging down the first lace pattern section (first 5 stitch section) because I was confused about where I left off. I thought I was about to start row 7 of the 8 row chart but turns out I was supposed to do row 5.

Resolved to try to always end at the end of a chart, or at least WRITE on the printout what row I’m on.

Finished that lace repeat and did another whole repeat so now I’m 3 repeats into the recommended 5 before starting the thumb gusset.

I’m liking the  pooling of the colors on the plain side as well as the pattern side though admittedly the lace pattern is getting a little lost. Looking forward to finishing them. I think I got the lace pattern down finally as I didn’t really have to look at the chart anymore. Was getting a pretty good rhythm going so perhaps if the ADD monster doesn’t come crashing through and make me go to other things, I’ll be able to stick with this long enough to finish it.

But of course I’ve got a lot of other things on the needles that beg to be finished too. Really need to be sure to do the 2nd glove for Ibby’s test pattern asap.  I know some people put on their blog what they’re working on and the progress but holy shit would I have a bunch of widgets in the sidebar if I did that and that’s not counting things that are truly hibernating! I love that Ravelry has that as a status because those sink to the bottom and you can see what you’re truly working on.

I had to sit and think about it for a while, what did I feel like working on? And finally I decided to push myself to work on the Merlettos some because I was starting to kind of hate it and think that I would never get it done. I figured if I still hated it after working on it last night, then I’d frog and give it up as a lost cause. But I got across that line where I finally “got” the pattern which means not only do I not need to look at the chart anymore but I can also tell where I am by looking at it and also quickly see if I’ve gone off.

Oh, forgot to mention that after I frogged and reknitted the lace. I had to do it again because I actually did it wrong  on the reknit. After all that, I was moving along when I realized that stitch #1 or 2 had somehow gotten dropped way down to the top of the ribbing. I contemplated just letting it rip out through the ribbing but that would leave behind a ‘ladder’ that would look out of place. A light bulb hit that if I used my teeny crochet hook, I could easily pick the stitch back up to the top row because it’s like chaining in crochet only the YOs come from each row above. Was pleased with myself for staying calm and figuring out and executing the fix quickly and neatly.

And holy crap, lunch came and they put a whole cow in my sandwich!