knitting for quasimodo baby

A little while ago, I stared what I thought to be an easy baby sweater with some beautiful plum yarn from my stash. I figured it would go quickly and was a great project to take with me as I traveled to visit Mike - and I was right. I plugged away on it and got pretty far.

The sweater is knit in one piece, with minimal seaming under the arms and is knit from the bottom up and around the shoulders to the front. Then you pick up the lapel and carry on. I had gotten through the back, and shoulders, and had split for the neck and was just going along following directions when I noticed things just didn't look right. I asked a friend, and we figured out I had counted wrong, and I ripped out a small bit and started again.

Fast forward to knitting this Saturday - I am 'finished' with both sides, and have gotten to the end of the pattern on my page, and am looking at the garment, and just can't figure it out. I am about to pick up for the lapel, and am looking at it and thinking - this just can't be right! So I ask for some help, and go through the pattern as written on my instruction sheet, and all is right.. but it's soo not right - I finally realize, I am missing 2 lines from the bottom of my pattern page that didn't print off properly! Two lines doesn't seem like much, but it's like missing two main ingredients when baking a cake - it will turn out oh-so-wrong, and mine did.

This is what it's supposed to look like at this point:



And here's what I mine looked like by the time I figured out my mistake:



Yeah. um. not so much. I ripped out and with the extra 2 lines of pattern will hopefully have this going in no time.

Mike is doing well, but has acquiesced to the fact that he is not a city boy. I think it's mostly his neighborhood, which is very loud and not as close as he would like. The neighbors drive by at all hours of the day/night and have the car stereos up really really loud - almost as if the song that's playing on the radio is their calling card they're leaving to say hello. Many times this causes a car alarm to go off, or another car to drive by with a different song and retaliate. Good fun when you're trying to sleep at 1 am. But he's managing. I will be up to visit in July - we're working on dates.

While visiting another friends blog I came across this really cool website which asks the question - What have you left behind? And he asks people from all over the world to answer the question. It's amazing how much you can identify with the answers. I suggest you check it out. Wish it was coming nearby, it'd be a cool exhibit to see.

The pregnancy is going well, I do have a belly now, but mostly feeling about the same - a bit more tired here and there, but nothing that a nap wouldn't take care of. I've been trying to hang out with friends on the weekend more since Mike isn't here. Next week is my 20 wk ultrasound - and NO, we're not finding out! ;) Mike won't be there, and that makes me sad - I'll have to send him pictures from the DVD. I miss him and will be glad when he's back. Only 7 weeks left - not too bad.