It's about time to pay attention to what I'm doing

So my dial up connection at home is a load of horse poo and I am about ready to rip the computer out of the wall and chuck it at the kitchen counter. Or shove it in the oven. "Maybe death will stop your yamering..." sorry. The connection fails approximately every hour, on the hour. It's fantastic.

Ethel is coming along. I can't say she's coming along well because I'm being lazy. And not just a little lazy either. We're talking I screwed up the third row of the first lily chart badly enough that it's a whole two stitches over the entire time and the little bobbles no where near match up. That was two charts ago. Chart two went off without much of a hitch (I did accidentally knit the center spine yarn overs into the middle of the left side, but that was easily remidied. The slightly stretched yarn over gives it...character...) Chart three has been a disaster. I'm trying to do it right but so far I've increase 4 stitches on the ends ( first center before the spine and the far end of the knit side) and then had to decrease6 or 7 the next time through becuase I was on something. (not sure what. I'm under the drinking age and I believe that advil is to strong of a drug.) I'm being lazy. I've got 12ish more rows to muddle my way through. The good news is I knit it in very forgiving chenille that hides all mistakes (sort of. nups two stitches over are hard to disguise.) I want this to be an everyday sort of shawl because I'm needy and I want shawls to be cool again. They should be. Them and capes. Icarus is my theatre shawl.

I tried knitting Meg's socks in VK and was playing with fire the whole way. I made a gauge swatch (bad idea. gauge lies to me often. I knit consistently, evenly, and the fabric undergoes some voodoo spell that makes it 6 inches too big or 2 inches too small (in the case of the sock. I'm in love with the pattern (there are lots of errors so I recommend grabbing the pattern from the site. That'd probably be best) and I bought yarn that'd give me a slightly bigger gauge on purpose. I have big calves. gymnastics does that to you. And they don't go away. I made my swatch, was content, and started knitting. I got to the heel, turned it, made it half way through the decreases and tried it on (I have to. It's a complex issue that I'm dealing with) I couldn't get it past my heel. It was too narrow by a long shot. I was angry. Then I spent twenty minutes ripping out hours of work.

As a bonus, a lesson learned from this event--If you knit incorrectly like I do. (a cross between English style and just plain wrong. I call it crab-gopher knitting) You can seperate the yarn with your thumb if the yarn changes every two or three stitches and you get a great consistent back. Does not work so well if it's over more than 4 or 5 stitches before the change. Gets too loose.

School starts on Wednesday. I'm done with my summer job. I finished my summer reading (yee-ha, three days before school started. then more homework) I think I know where I want to go to college (that's this next year. Class of 07 representin') I'm running Thespian Society. Life is good.

Much Love.