Rain-y Day ..... Sweeping the Heat Away

Okay, so I can't sing. :~{

Finally, the rain has come! The gutters are overflowing! We received four inches in less than 24 hours.  Yippee!  It is currently 77 degrees F at 3:45 pm. Ahhhh!  .....  and still raining.

After a long day of traipsing through the rain, getting my biweekly allergy shots, visiting a second doctor to review blood work to find out if I have rheumatoid arthritis (he doesn’t think so) and having more blood work taken, there has been only a little knitting done on the Red Summer Cardigan. I did, however, find buttons at Jo-Ann's. Yeah!

Did I forget to say, that I am mostly a monogamous knitter. I might have two projects going -- one small and one large.  So there will be a few more reports on the cardigan, before there is much news on the mittens or marble bag. Then again, socks may sneak onto my US size 1 needles when I’m not looking. Has been known to happen.

Back to the sweater -- The bottom ribbing is completed, but not without travails. :-(  After completing the six rows of 1 x 1 ribbing, I looked at it and looked at it. Something was wrong. It finally dawned on me that I had knitted it on the wrong size needles. I didn’t change to the smaller needles. Ugh!!  

I began to tink back and then decided to use Franklin Habit’s suggestion of threading a US size 1 needle where you needed to frog back to, then frog away. Well, you may remember that this yarn is a bouclé yarn. Threading through the stitches was not fun. Neither was frogging as the nubs would catch in the stitches. Arrrrrg!  After a few hours of threading, frogging, picking up dropped stitches and finally knitting a clean row, I put the sweater in time out and went to bed.

Now using US size 5 needles (not 7), the ribbing is done, bound off and the end woven in.  Yoohoo!  I, then, began to pick up the sleeve stitches that had been waiting on waste yarn. Not one to finish a pattern exactly as written, I am making this cardigan long sleeved. After much arithmetic, measuring and sketching (I do have a degree in Mathematics after all, I might as well use it.) I started on the first sleeve. This would be going greatly, except I like to knit sleeves with two circular needles. I have one 24 inch size 7 and one 40 inch size 7. Talk about too much needle for the job!  

After wrestling with the needles for half a day, I traipsed back out into the pouring rain (beautifully needed, but very wet) to my LYS and bought two 16 inch size 7 needles. After supper I will change them out and it should be smooth sailing from here. 

Get it? ....rain .....lots of rain....sailing!  LOL