If insanity is doing the same thing over and over. . .

I've finished what I was working on but can't post pictures yet. So, on to other things.

Today, Mack got his stitches out, which was a good thing considering the state of his bandage.


He had started looking like a cast member for "Les Miserables." And the vet told us that his mass was. . . a wart. No, really, she used the word "papilloma," which besides sounding like "butterfly" in French, and "dove" in Spanish, is just fancy, give-me-$1500-dollars-pronto-speak for "wart." So, besides the worry and the fact that he's still gnawing at his leg, everything is super, dog-wise.

He chased tennis balls today, much to the delight of the little ones. Thank you again to everyone who sent good thoughts. Now I can get back to raving about his food-stealing and shedding.

Once I packaged up what I had been knitting, my thoughts returned to the list of unfinished goodies on needles. Thing 1 reminded me that she "needed" another sweater, as she was certain to outgrow the green wool one by next winter. She has suggested that me ripping out the bottom and re-knitting a longer rib onto it might buy me some time, but I'd rather vacuum up dog hair than do that. She also wants a hat made out of the green wool (cleverly left over by me making the sweater too small) and I could probably accomodate that wish sometime soon.

But another wool sweater for a growing child? I don't think I'm up for that right now. I actually think I had better make a spreadsheet detailing what I've knit for whom among the short set, so that I can prove who really is next in line. It's flattering, in a way, to have the eternal sibling rivalry about who gets what and how unfair it is played out over my handknits, but sheesh.

Instead, I figured I'd unearth the orange vest from way back when. I located the book with almost no difficulty -- funny how putting things back in place helps with that, huh? -- and sat down to reread the pattern. After all the shenanigans the last time I'd attempted it, I had made helpful notes under the cable patterns in the book, so that cable A was annotated "blue markers," while cable B boasted "black markers."

So far, so good. I unrolled all 112 or so stitches on the needles, and got my first shock. This vest has been sitting quietly in my sock basket in my closet since February. In that time, only once have the middle Things been caught messing about in there, looking for spare change fallen out of my pockets. Hey, gumball addicts will stoop to almost anything. I don't think there has been anyone else in there.

So where did all my knitting go? I'm on Row 20 of a much larger pattern. Didn't all that knitting, ripping, and re-knitting mean anything? Apparently not. Row 20 it is.

I took a deep breath, found the markers and arranged myself. I realized I'd have to relearn the symbols on the chart so it would go faster, and I lined up the markers.

Oh.

It's apparently not going to go any faster. This is the first thing I noticed, in the first cable:


I'm going to relearn the chart symbols by ripping out and re-knitting chart A for starters.