Yarn Along

So I continue to Yarn Along with Ginny at Small Things. This week has been focused on finishing the blue sweater. Well actually I pit stopped by the Bel Cloche for Reba which came out super cute! I had some toruble with the increases at the crown it ended up size wise between a lg and an XL, which I didn't think was going to be excessively problematic until I blocked it and it blocked out HUGE! Well bigger than I would like but still wearable...although when I do this pattern again (b/c I will it was cute, cute, cute...) I will be sure to get the correct number of increases and only make a Lg size. I also ended up goofing a little on the length of the hat overall- apparently I was having a hard time following directions on this one despite it being very nicely written- well really I should have made better use of the row counter but I was being lazy. I kept thinking it was going to be too small so I figured I'd add some extra length and with the slightly larger # of stitches it would all work out...and then it ended up being a bit big.... oh well. Lessons learned! I was really surprised though at how much bigger it seemed once I blocked it?!?!?!?

Back to the blue sweater I did end up frogging all of the patterned section on the back and redoing it. I just knew it would bug me forever that the pattern was reversed. Also it allowed me to add some length by adding some extra sections of pattern, which meant that I had to rip out some of the front too to add more pattern to match but now all the frogging and reknitting is done and all that is left is the seaming. I seamed the right side already. I have never seamed a whole garment before-even a toddler size one and boy am I not enjoying it. I think I will stick with knitting in the round as much as possible! So then as I started to seam the left side I realized that I really needed to add some extra length to the back shoulder to give me a place to put the buttons on. Otherwise I feel like it will pull excessively on that side. So I am adding on a few rows there and then I will get the rest of the seaming done and then I can start on the hat!!!! I really need to learn to knit quicker!

As for reading I have been catching up on my parenting magazine for this month and the knitting book was so I could learn how to seam. I actually love this book b/c it has tons and tons of pictures of all differnet techniques and different kinds of stitches. I am a really visual person so having the photo to look at really helps me figure out how my stitches are supposed to be. This book and KnittingHelp.com have been my saving graces. My weight watchers journey continues with the cook book. I realized this week how easy it was to fall back into bad eating patterns. I was so bad this weekend without even realizing it. I thought I was being good and I'd look up the food values afterwards and discover that the foods I thought were ok really have a lot of hidden sugars and fats. Did you know that Chocolate Stampede from Longhorn has over 2000 calories in what they call 2 servings? uugh- good thing we brought it home and it took me 4 days to eat my half. I don't expect to lose any weight this week but hopefully I won't gain too much and now I just have to focus on keeping on track.