Knitting by day, belly dancing by night...: Ending one, Beginning one

The blanket is finished. And that makes me happy. Mr. A told me last night when I held it up to show him that "it looks like a normal people blanket because it's so big!" Aren't I glad I only used 3 of the 6 balls I had bought? Haha. Here is the picture as promised in the last post. I couldn't find the pen I kept using as a size guage, but I think the couch gives a good indication of size.

Thursday night was the second Boise night. At least for me anyway. Everyone who was working on the shawl had such beautiful progress. It was very exciting to see everyone's work and all the pretty colors that this shawl was chosen to be made into. I wasn't quite as far as the others though. At the cast on last week, I ripped out my first cast on in order to do one I preferred better. Then I dropped a stitch and didn't realize that my mysterious missing stitch was a dropped one until Friday. It was fixed. I had finished the purl row after my second pattern row, and since my fingers were occupied on another project, I didn't touch it until this Thursday. It was then that I realized that instead of moving forward in my pattern, I had just knit the first row again and my second pattern row. Read: I wasn't getting anywhere. So before starting I opted to rip back instead of tinking. Yep. Had to cast on again. I got into the first pattern row and at the end of it, I realized I had one too many stitches. Arg. Rip. After this cast on, I was still in the garter stitch border when it looked like a YO next to the cast on row, but there was no way to get rid of the ugly little hole. And yes.. something that small would drive me nuts. For those of you counting, this is rip #4. By the time I left knit night, I had a greand total of 2 garter stitch rows. It was a little frustrating, but I guess some nights are just not meant to be spent knitting. Even though it takes me all night to make that realization. I did not try to work on it at home, instead I just crawled in bed to try to sleep my headache away.

Last night I decided was a perfect night for knitting. Wonderful Ms. J sent me the chart she made for the pattern. I have never read a chart before, but I decided trying to decipher "\ . ./././. /" is easier than trying to read "blah blah blah, [blah (ee!!!)x3 blah blah] x3 blah blah (blah) x3 blah blah blah." It is very nice that I can look at my work and look at the chart and see the same image on my fabric as there are symbols on the chart. Thank you Ms. J for introducing me to this wonderful world of easy pattern reading! (And to the Queen for offering her version as well) The peg board that Maya Papaya let me borrow is also helping very much to keep track of exactly where I am. By the time I set down the Boise shawl last night, I had finished the first 11 row repeat. Hooray!! Now that I have that one set finished, I really understand the pattern. This is going to fly. I showed Mr. A what I had done so far and he poked at it saying "Wow! It's like.. you're first real pattern!" o.O Hey! My sock wasn't a real pattern? The blanket wasn't a real pattern?! The FROG BAG??? "I mean... your first complicated pattern.. with like... the little holes in it and the stuff and this [pointing to some stitch repeat in the shawl]" Thanks, hun! I corrected him in that this was not my first pattern or my first complicated pattern, but probably my first lace pattern. :p Since I was in a picture taking mood, I also took pictures of the first repeat. Hooray!!