What a Day!

No, what a MONTH! Actually, WHAT A SUMMER!! It has been wonderful, just long and hard. Today was the family history day put on by the Concord NH stake of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was invited to prepare and present classes on how to scale brick walls in genealogical research as well as to maintain the website which publicized the event. (You can see that website at http://concordfhday.crossett.net). It was a daunting task but so enjoyable and now, over!

The family history day has taken so much of my time that I have not even been knitting on granddaughter Grace's sweater for days. Now that responsibility is over and out came the sweater as I unwound from the travel and the action-packed day. Bob was not quite ready to leave for his own service with the youth in Concord so I was able to decompress a little with him, and now have called and spoken with son, granddaughter, daughter, and sweet elderly neighbor. A round on the cable-knit sweater has been completed, some pick-up, clean-up has been accomplished (though the emphasis is DEFINITELY on the word "some"!) and I am about ready to crawl off to the upper regions and become horizontal for the first time in seventeen hours...a recent record for me!

Must be up early to help out with some early morning babysitting for a young family at church, so no more knitting tonight (or cleaning, either, to my shame) even though I am sorely tempted because now everything is going RIGHT on the Aran sweater project. Previously, when I had put this sweater's body with the two sleeves preparing to knit up the yoke and finish with the neck ribbing, I had misguidedly ended the sleeves on an even row and the body on an odd row. Not a good idea. In my defense, this is the first time I have created a design for a sweater a la Elizabeth Zimmermann's seamless yoke sweater pattern instructions and carried it out. With a stocking stitch sweater there would be no issue, but with cable crossings on the even rows, it makes sense to have the sleeves and the body joining at the point where they were all even rows or all odd rows. Miraculously, and totally by accident, it turned out that I was knitting row 86 (from the bottom of the body, not counting the ribbing which I am going to add later) and just worked every stitch as it ought to have been knitted up, and, even though some of the stitches were a little tight because they did not have their odd row of "plain knitting" between cable crossing even rows, it looks all right. At least with very tired eyes in a dimly lit living room. I will check it out tomorrow in the sunlight and see if I have to rip it out and start again with the yoke. It is only 7 rows which is 1,176 stitches. It could be worse!