Disgustipated

Oh, knitting. Why must you torment me so?

I had taken the past week and a half off, intending to relax and knit. The week did not go exactly as planned, with the doggy chemotherapy and the unpredictable weeping interrupting my hours of enjoyment, but yet I was hopeful. Arosa was only two sleeves away from being finished, and Bella was going to be done in a record-breaking four days. At least, I reasoned, I'd have something to show for my vacation.

What went awry? Why am I less than enthused, with only hours left of my vacation? Notice that neither piece above has sleeves. Both need sleeves, as I have admitted and Daisy has confirmed. "Mmmmmm...yeah," she said, her face crinkling ever so slightly with distaste. "It needs something. Maybe just a cap sleeve, but definitely something."


I knew as soon as I started the Arosa sleeve, which is a *YO, K2tog* mesh for its entire length, that I wasn't going to be doing it. The yarn, so happy to be knit in stockinette, was nearly impossible to knit into that net pattern. I'm going to have to make something up to replace it.


What about the Krista with the Bella neckline, the one I'm going to start calling Kristabella? Oh, that. The sleeves, which I'm too disgusted to photograph, came out at least ten stitches too short on each edge. I ran out of stitches when I was seaming them in. I'm pretty sure I misread the pattern, and that I missed a few repeats between decrease sections. Also, it's cotton. Cotton immediately stretches across my torso and makes me look about ten pounds heavier than I am. I don't know why I keep forgetting this. I don't think it'll be a bad sweater when it's done, and it was quick enough to knit, but now I'm unmotivated to do anything with it.

So here's my dilemma. I can reknit the Kristabella sleeve, making it a 3/4 sleeve with a bell edge, and I'd probably like it. I could have it done by the end of the day. Alternatively, I can make up a sleeve for Arosa and set it in, also being done by the end of the day. My goal is to be able to wear one of them to work tomorrow. I may decide based on a coin flip.

In other news, Lucy's tolerating her chemotherapy very well. The oncologist says that she's already responding well to the drugs, and her lymph nodes are shrinking quickly. I spent last week bursting into tears every time anybody expressed sympathy or concern about the situation. It's like when you fall down, and you're O.K. until somebody comes up and asks you if you're O.K., and then you start sobbing. I'm getting better about it. It now takes a good five minutes of talking about it to get me going. How's Lucy, the happiest dog in the world, handling this? She's wagging her tail and licking anything that moves. Nothing new there. She's sleeping a lot, but she wasn't exactly an insomniac before this. We're just happy to have her around, drowsy or not. She's a few feet away from me right now, snoring softly. It's good.

I got my invitation to Ravelry last week, poked around there a little bit and really liked it, but haven't done anything at all there for myself. Maybe I'll start inputting things once I've recovered from the stress of my vacation.

Yesterday was my 37th birthday. I knit, watched 'Perry Mason', ate brie and salami sandwiches for lunch, and had a good dinner with my friends. Accountant Boy made a fantastic card for me from an old GL transaction report. (We're trying to save money, because Lucy's care has now cost more than a trip to Europe.)

Yep, those last three paragraphs gave me just enough time for to think. I'm going to go knit the Arosa sleeves.