I keep a sock in the car for any unanticipated knitting opportunities. Just a ball of sock yarn and some DPNs in a ziplock bag... it used to contain a darning needle and pair of folding scissors, but those items were pulled out as needed and never returned out of laziness. A few weeks ago, the first sock of the pair was finished during an oil change, but without a needle the toe was never grafted.
Fast forward to yesterday- Scott and I spent several hours in the ER (he's fine, just some random chest pain- likely Pleurisy) and I had no knitting. Obviously, when your husband calls to say, "I'm going to the hospital with chest pains," your last thought is, "Hold on, let me go home and grab my knitting." If only there a stupid darning needle in that bag, the toe could have been grafted and the second sock begun.
Of course, this is only frustrating after the fact, now that Scott is resting at home. While at the hospital my thoughts were more along the lines of, "Please make him better!" "Why isn't he getting the CAT scan yet!?" and "OMG, OMG, OMG..." But I have to say, Frederick Memorial Hospital was pretty great. Even Scott thought so, and he's a pretty tough customer to please.
His nurse, Judy, was very helpful and attentive. Dr. Thompson, the ER doctor, was very thorough, nonjudgmental, and reassuring. The triage nurses and miscellaneous techs were all great- the guy that took his blood, John (I think), was crazy fast. I think he started an IV and took like 6 vials of blood in under 90 seconds. According the the chatter we could overhear at the nurses' station, the ER was absolutely swamped, but the staff were always patient and available. Scott was out in less than 3 hours, despite needing an X-ray, CAT scan and blood work, but at the same time they didn't rush him out either. Although, being seen so quickly can most likely be attributed to complaining of "excruciating pain on the left side of the chest." Apparently that sends up red flags, and they get you a bed right away.
Anywho, back to knitting! The Boyfriend Sweater is finished! It turned out a lot more like the original pattern than anticipated (and here I thought I was making it more fitted).
The Good: It pretty much fits. The yarn is super soft. It's my first real, seamed sweater. I didn't screw up the seaming too bad. It's super comfy.
The Bad: The sleeves are a little too long, even for me (I grossly underestimated how much the drop sleeves would drop). The waist shaping is just a smidge too high. I should have done a few more rows at the top, in the drop-shoulder area (you can see at the sleeve seams, the sleeves were a bit wider than the shoulder edges).
Overall, I'm happy with it, and feel that I was able to learn from my mistakes. I attempted to thwart the mohair's propensity to shed by sticking the dampened sweater in the freezer (a trick I learned on Ravelry). It seems to have lessened the shedding, but it's hard to tell if that's from the freezer or just from being washed.
I've also started another baby blanket with the frogged yarn from the striped blanket I started a while back. This time I'm going to crochet it, and maybe it will go faster. I'm just crocheting with one ball, and switching colors when the ball runs out for wider stripes. The plan is to go white-green-white-green-white, etc., ending with white on both edges; then using the last ball of green to make a small border.
The first stripe is done, and went pretty quickly. I have until June to finish, which is (hopefully) plenty of time. Now that the sweater is done, this is the only project I really have going. I cannot express in words how strange it feels to only be working on one thing. I may have to start another pair of socks or something just to mix things up.
