Cough, cough. Hack!! Cough. Cough, cough.

We spent most of the week after Christmas in New Orleans. I had a great time, but now I can't find one of the cables for uploading pictures from my camera, so pictures from the trip (and any stash acquisitioning of late) are going to have to wait.

I went back into the office on the third, and I felt fine, which was nice because I'd been sick with respiratory crud and sore throat crud and coughing crud until right before the holiday. Unfortunately, I must have picked up a variant of the crud that I haven't had yet in NOLA from one of the visiting football fans (I'm blaming the Hawaiians) because along about 6-ish my throat started to burn. I spent the next day at home, working only insomuch as I was answering the phone and made a few calls to cancel appointments for that day. I'd meant to take Friday off, but I had to work because I stayed home on Thursday.

My quest this weekend has been to feel well enough that going to court in Denton on Monday won't kill me. This would be particularly nice considering that I have another client with an appearance in Denton on Wednesday. I also have clients coming in on Thursday. I need to be well, but it's hard to get well when I'm having trouble sleeping due to a racking, tearing cough that is trying to live in my chest. At this point, my best hope is that it's not pneumonia. I do not have time for this crud.

But knitting doesn't count as work, so I've sat with my feet up and done a lot of knitting while watching all the Lord of the Rings movies again. I've gotten Arwen to the point where I'm supposed to graft the cables at the end of the sleeves and then cast off the rest of the sleeves. I know I'm sick and that I haven't slept well in days, but, uhhh, wtf is with this sleeve construction?? I can't seem to find all the stitches to pick up so I can come up with this mythical "invisible" graft, and I'm wondering if I give a damn about that at this point. I'm also sort of flummoxed at the idea that I graft the cuffs but then just cast off the rest of the sleeve and sew that up later. It makes no sense to me to do this. I've ended up putting the sleeve on holders (cables on one, the rest of the sleeve on another) (thank you, knitpicks!) and I'm going to go on with the hood. I'm hoping it will make more sense when I can go for more than two minutes without a pause to try and hack up a lung.

I'm scared that I'm going to be sorry about all the time I've put into this thing. I've had an assload of trouble understanding the construction, and from what I'm seeing on Ravelry there are a lot of people who have had trouble with the sleeves. Almost no one seems to have done the whole sweater exactly as designed, which should have been a big red flag to me. Everyone seems to have modified the sleeves in some way, so I can't be the only person having the omgwtf problem here.

I hope I can figure out how to finish the sleeves in a way that looks okay, and that the right side works out better (without being a different size somehow than the left side). I'm really freaking out over here.

How to Not Knit a Sweater

I was really moving along on Arwen. I mean, things were looking great, considering that I'm the world's slowest knitter and all. I had even gotten over the worry I had when I reached the part for making the sleeve and for the life of me couldn't figure out what the hell I was supposed to do with this "short row sleeve shaping business." (Keep in mind that I've knit a lot of socks, and so when I see the words "short row," I assume a heel or a toe are going to appear. I thought maybe I was adding an elbow or something.)

I just followed the pattern on faith, and when the light came on, well, it really came on, and I was working the sleeve and I got to the sleeve cuff with all the cables and I had that going on a different row from the body cables because that's just how it worked out. And that was okay, it was working. I had two counters going. Then, in the next piece of pattern, it said to keep working the sleeve/body bit for a given number of rows, adding yet a third counter to the project, and I only own three and one of them is tucked into a sock pattern right now. I tried to keep count on a piece of paper, and I crashed and burned at something. One of the cables went wrong, and the body of the sleeve count appeared to be off, and then I tried to rip back to the part before the sleeve. Every single time I tried to put the stitches back on the needles, I only had 23 stitches in the cable instead of 24. I totally lost my shit at this point and ended up ripping the whole damned thing out.

I've started over, and I'm about halfway back to the part where I'll add the sleeve. I should have yet another counter ready for this so that when I hit the part that tanked me before, I'll be ready. I'm also going to run a lifeline at the row right below where the sleeve is cast on, so if this happens again I have a place to start and my cable stitches can't suddenly go all reclusive and mysterious on me.

Still, I have to ask myself: What the hell is wrong with me that I couldn't just pick a normally constructed sweater with sleeves that I'd be sewing on later for the first sweater I actually want to make? I'm sure this thing is an engineering marvel and all, but really, the words "needlessly complex" fell out of my mouth, along with a few other choice words that can get you a ticket for disorderly conduct if you say them in public in front of a cop. It was not pretty.

Surprise Yarn Store Trip

I had lunch with a solo practice lawyer who has an office in Plano yesterday. As I left his office (he was being really helpful showing me how he has things set up), I specifically told myself, "I do not need more yarn. I am not going to the Woolie Ewe. Even though it's just down the street a few miles, I'm not going there."

As I told myself this, I managed to turn the wrong way, and instead of taking Parker to Preston like I'd intended to, I got turned around and found myself heading south on Custer. Plano has changed a bit since I lived there, and so it took me a few minutes to figure out that I was really going the wrong way. The next recognizable landmark? The Woolie Ewe.

I swear I didn't plan this. As far as I'm concerned, the car drove me there by itself. It was the yarn fumes. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I bought two skeins of Regia sock yarn and Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitter's Almanac. I used money my aunt gave me as a graduation present, so it doesn't really count as spending money I don't have, either.

I don't have much of a yarn stash because I'm just not the kind of person who will spend $75+ on enough yarn for a completely mythical sweater. If I'm going to buy enough yarn to do something with, I want to know how much yarn I need. If I have no idea what I'll use it for, I'm probably not going to buy it. (There are exceptions to this, but not a lot of them. Don't ask me about alpaca, I'm not admitting anything here.)

The problem with sock yarn is that there's never any question as to what it's for, or how much I'll need. I'm going to make socks with it, and I probably need two balls, skeins, or whatever it comes in, unless it's a big skein and then I need one. I fear that eventually I'll be up to my butt in sock yarn here because if I see it in a color I like, I buy it. Less than $30 for something I know I'll use eventually is more than I can resist.

Meanwhile, I finally got Arwen really started, and I'll be starting the first sleeve in the next couple of days. I have one Earl Grey sock all the way up to the toe decrease, so it's probably going to get finished tonight and I'll cast on the next one immediately to avoid the dreaded second sock syndrome. I also got an email about the fate of the Purple Tank Top of Doom. M reportedly likes it, and it all fits except for the straps, which her mother is just going to sew shorter.

Licensed, and suddenly finishing things.

I got my license in the mail late last week, and I've been trying to get things up and running for the last few days. I called a few people who had wanted me to call when I got the license, bought some office supplies, and made some plans. I've figured out what color the office needs painting, and I have the possibility of a few people who might want to pay me to do some lawyer stuff for them. I'm trying to remain hopeful even though I spent most of yesterday expecting phone calls and occasionally checking the phone to see if it still worked. I'm guessing there will be busy days and days when I'll wonder what I was thinking. I also discovered late this afternoon that if you carry the phone around all day, no matter what you're doing, a potential client will call when you've finally wandered off and left your phone somewhere, after business hours but before you would have knocked off if you had known a potential client would call. I hope I can reach them tomorrow before everyone heads out for the holiday. It would be nice to know I had some actual billable work to look forward to.

Today I stayed around home and did laundry and got ready to pack for the trip to see the folks this weekend. I have a bad case of the "I don't wannas" because I really don't feel like taking a long trip to eat a "family" Thanksgiving at the club, but it's not my house or kitchen it's happening in and I've run out law school to use as an excuse to spend the holiday at home cooking something decent in my own kitchen. My mother will probably want to go shopping on Black Friday, too, which fills me with horror. I'm looking forward to coming home already.

The bright spot in the trip is that I'm hoping to see some of my friends, and I finally finished the purple tank top of doom so I could hand it off to the mother of the child I hope it will fit. The finishing went much more easily than I thought it would, and I am filled with unjustified confidence for the eventual finishing of the Arwen sweater, which I haven't started yet. I might start it tonight if I have time so I have more than one thing to do this weekend. I'm afraid one project won't be enough to keep my patience running this weekend.