Running update: Knitting instead

Baby Bolero
Yarn: Blue Sky Organic Cotton Yarn, Sage
Needles: US 8 circular, Tapestry needle
Pattern in OneSkein, Leigh Radford

I'm trying not to think (read: stress the hell out) about the race on Sunday by doing some first class procrastinating. Apparently my life has turned into one big Do Whatever You're Not Supposed To Be Doing fest.

I should have been working on my InStitches project; quilting its many sides (who knew rectangles had one hundred sides?), patchworking its many pieces, handsewing its stupid lining, etc. But I'm not. Because I can't sit on the couch and sew, and couch sitting has been my priority during Taper Week.

So, instead of sewing, I've been knitting Baby Bolero sweaters for all my pregnant friends. The pattern is fine, despite its annoying CO With Waste Yarn this and Remove to Stitch Holder that going on every four fricken lines. I think I just have unrealistic expectations of every pattern in the OneSkein book and those expectations always lead to disappointment. Specifically, I expect that any pattern that uses only one skein or less of yarn should take, like, no time at all, which is obviously not true since I've been working on this sweater for most of the week and it still has no sleeves.

This pattern has taken me the better part of my evening couch sitting this week and I haven't even sewn on the dumb sleeves yet. And it's not like the time is being spent knitting feverishly an enormous torso or big ass sleeves or a king size duvet or anything. I mean, the sweater is positively tiny. It's for a newborn, so, you know, it's real small.

Of course, I did spend one evening after a dinner consisting mostly of four glasses of wine, knitting and frogging and knitting and frogging a hundred times the stupid seven (7) line eyelet pattern for the back of this thing because I couldn't get it to look like the picture. And let me just say that this eyelet pattern is really not hard at all. It's like a couple of YOs and you're done. Except that mine looked like crap about 10 times and I was getting woozy trying to YO and sit up straight on the couch.

Funny how when I returned to the scene the next night I was able to rip through the Scary Eyelet Pattern in, like, a flash and Blah-DOW it was done. Oh.

Note for futures: Awesome Cabernet and Easy Eyelet Pattern do not mix. Perhaps that is why this pattern does not include a cup holder. Who knows?

Anyway, I'm glad that I can blame the repeated failure (but eventual success, yay) on the wine because I was going to have a hard time going on with this whole Finny "Knits" thing if I couldn't manage a friggen seven line eyelet. I will just go ahead and say it, I'd much rather be called a drunk than a bad knitter.

During a moment of shiny optimism I went online and ordered two more skeins of this nice yarn so that I could continue torturing myself with two more boleros. Because if picking up 67 stitches while carefully removing waste yarn and then 20 more from the stitch holder and 1200 more from the BO edges doesn't make you crazy the first time, doing it two more times will definitely seal the crazy juices right in.

Tomorrow I will be tackling the remaining 600 steps in the Patchwork Handbag pattern while I sit on my dead ass and REST as I've been so instructed by my personal running coach. And, at this moment, I may or may not be taking in my pre-race carbs in the form of Nutella on a toasted hot dog bun.

Don't you judge me.