My Hobbies are Getting in the Way of My Hobbies

I made a fair amount of progress in knitting this weekend, despite the discovery of some pattern transcription mistakes, the resultant ripping, and finally further progress. But my other hobbies are getting in the way of my knitting!

Square dancing last weekend was a lot of fun, but it meant very little knitting -- just a few rows between tips. I decided to weave in the ends of the fair isle section in the baby dress, since I could do that in little bits. I'm proud to say that I did them all! When I finish I'll really be almost done, and that will feel great. Over the past few days I ripped and reknit the entire top section and last night stayed up just a litle bit late to sew the shoulders together.

Now that it's done and big, the hemline doesn't look so bad, but now that I started the sleeve, I prefer the look of the crisper edge. I'm sort of considering cutting off the bottom and redoing it, but then I think more about how much work that will be and think again. I think I'll wait to see how it looks when it's all finished and then make a decision.

I did get enough time to work on some other projects, though. I sewed the side seams on the purple baby sweater, so now I just need to block one more sleeve and sew them both on. I don't know why this part is always so difficult. It somehow seems very tedious. I'm hoping to find some time to sit down and do it soon, though, since the baby will come any day now and it would be nice to send it. (Don't worry, it's the 18-24 month size, but I shouldn't let it languish that long!)

I also made a little more progress on Mist. The left front is about up to the neck shaping. But because my row gauge is tight by about 20%, so I need to carefully read the instructions and decide whether 40 rows from the top of the back is really 40 rows or needs to be to 48 so that the neck isn't too high. I'll get back to that when I have a little more time to pay attention.

Last weekend was busy with square dancing and this week is busy with singing. Two orchestra rehearsals this week and four concerts between Thursday and Tuesday will keep me very busy. I need to do a little extra work to make up for missing two half-days of work, so that will cut into the knitting a little bit. Nonetheless, I'm hoping I might be able to show off a finished dress before the concert on Saturday, and then maybe I'll be super-diligent at Knitsmiths on Sunday and put those sleeves on that baby sweater.

I've decided it's about time to talk about my new venture: grad school. I'll be leaving Boston this summer to start a Ph.D. program out West in the fall. Boulder and San Diego are my prime candidates at this point, though I'm still considering Riverside and might be accepted to Stanford. And what I've been thinking about this week is... weather. Here's this week's weather forecast:*

Oh yeah, time to get outta here!

* I tried to make the table font small, but I couldn't manage. It just means the weather is trying to taunt us.