Ni!

I had to start over on the chenille helmet last night; the gauge I thought was 3 sts = 1" was actually 2.5 sts = 1". It was also turning out too loose and I didn't like the texture of the stitch so I frogged it and started over on needles 2 sizes smaller. CO 76 stitches, 3.5 sts = 1", and I think I'm going to do the whole thing in purl. So many knitters seem to dislike purl, I don't. I, however, do like that my knitting is a little tighter than my purling, and since this is a hat I would like to fit (like most garments), I'm going to knit it inside out. I'm going to knit in the round normally, stockinette stitch with the knit stitches to the outside, but use the knit side as the wrong side. When I'm finished, turn it inside out so that only the purls are seen. With the chenille it makes a nice, bumpy look which seems to fit this hat.

This hat makes me giggle. The helmet picture I'm trying to follow brings up images of Monty Python's "Holy Grail" and large mustaches. Not images I would invite while knitting but definitely amusing. And I'm actually looking into new shrubberies at the moment... my gardenias in the front of my house are not happy.

Anyway, work is plodding along ok. I feel a little schizophrenic because I can't seem to remember exactly what I need to check for in this project and my quality of typing the reports seems to vary from day to day, morning to afternoon, even though I'm feeling better than I have in a long time. Thank goodness Ph-i-l called yesterday and said they had to drop the current project to play catch-up/clean-up for someone else, thus giving me a few extra days to work on what we've received so far at leisure. I voiced to him my concern about the "sudden rush project" possibility and he said he didn't think anyone was rushing anything at the moment, people are just trying to stay busy so no one has an excuse to get rid of them. That's fine with me. I can stay busy. He knows I'm not a slacker, even though I'd rather be knitting. I'm very good, though. I group the documents into 5s and after I finish each stack I treat myself to 5 minutes of a break, whether blogging, walking around the house, tending to Little Guy, email, etc. This is one of my 5 minutes breaks. And it's lasted a little longer than 5 minutes. Oops.