I had gotten better and went out with my friends Friday night. We went out to eat at Buca di Beppo and we got our pictures back from the photo session we did the last time we went out. Aren't we cute? Not bad for a bunch of 30-somethings! Even though it's been 16 years, a few pounds, and (in my case) several more gray hairs since high school, we pretty much look the same.
So I had a great time, then woke on Saturday to a fever, headache, chills, body aches, sore throat, and runny/stuffy nose. Yippee!
Saturday morning I was bound and determined to pound through my laundry and some housework and while I did get it done, I was completely sapped by midday. I couldn't do much knitting because everything hurt so much, but by gosh I tried.
I was trying to get through the raglan decreases on the back of Oblique. It's not hard, but you really do need to pay close attention and I should have known better than to attempt it while feverish, sleepy, and under the influence of TheraFlu. I kept messing up the diagonal lace patterns. I did a fine job of fixing all the mistakes, but you'd think that after the 6th time of doing so I'd just give up and quit while I was ahead. The raglan decreases seemed to be going well.
Oh no, I wanted to get through that back. On Sunday my fever was a little worse and more persistant, yet as soon as TheraFlu kicked in, I wanted to try to work on Oblique again. When I reached the point of only a couple more raglan decreases before binding off, it was clear that I had way too many stitches on the needles.
The one irritation in the pattern for me - and it probably is just for me - is that I had a little trouble figuring out how to incorporate the diagonal lace patterns into the raglan decreases in such a manner that I actually am decreasing every time. I had to rip the back all the way back to the start of the raglan decreases for good measure.
This time, I carefully counted my stitches and worked the lace pattern such that when I worked a decrease row, I actually was decreasing one stitch from each side every time. This meant that sometimes I actually had to do an sssk or a k3tog in order to keep everything decreasing correctly. When I did it the first time, the way I was working the patterns after the decreases was actually adding a stitch back in and cancelling out the decreases on many of the rows. All was made right however and I bound off the back this morning.
Now I'm faced with another dilemma. Silly me thought that the raglan decrease stitches on the fronts should be kept partially in moss stitch. That's what I thought Veronik meant when she said "work in pattern". Dummy. One look at the picture would have told me that ALL the raglan decrease stitches should stay as stockinette. Arghh! What to do? I could rip back both sleeves to the start of the raglan decreases and do them yet AGAIN!!! Did I tell you that I had already ripped back each one and redid for the same reason that I did the back? Will I ever learn?
Oh well. I'll probably end up ripping back since lately I'm so hell-bent on having everything perfect. I did already cast on for the sleeves though so by the time I finish them, I may no longer care enough. Who am I kidding...I'm sure I'll rip back.
In spite of my own difficulties, I really enjoy knitting Oblique. I love Veronik's patterns because she pays so much attention to detail. I've been drooling over the Strawberry Lace Wrap Cardigan from her book Knitting Classic Style. That might just be the perfect match for my pile of hand dyed Delphinium Blue merino heaven!
For now, I must try to get back to work since I've missed 3 days now due to this illness. Anybody know of a good disinfectant bomb?
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