Picture Pages! Picture Pages!

The visit with the family was wonderful. My dad kept very busy fixing all the furniture that got broken in the move and cleaning the deck. Mom and Amy and I had an easier time. We worked out in the yard. We unpacked all my boxes of breakable items and did some decorating.

And we managed to get the dining room from this


To this


My parents brought the dining room chairs with them. Mom and dad made these for us as a wedding gift. On Saturday we picked out the material and my dad finished covering the seats. We found this material in the remnants section at Hancock fabrics. It cost us $7 to finish all six chairs. How great is that?


On Friday Angela and her son Nicholas came down to visit and on Monday James dad stopped by to pick up Maggie. We had a very full house! But on Tuesday everyone left and now the house is very big and empty. Le sigh.


To cheer myself up I've been wearing these for the past two days. Oh the wonderful things we find when we unpack.


And I've had plenty of time to knit. I finished the back of the sweater. I think I messed up the lace pattern on the right side. I say "I think" because I can't really tell if I did or not. I think that might mean I didn't mess up.


I've almost finished the right front piece. The directions for the front are written out in about 3 paragraphs with sentences like "Decrease at the beginning of every 4th row. At the same time increase at the beginning of every wrong side row 8 times, then cast on 2 stitches for 4 rows . . . " Add to this the problem of the pattern repeat and I had no choice but to write out every row of the pattern.



The stitch pattern is an 8-stitch repeat. As I was increasing for the back, I would add another pattern repeat when I had 8 more stitches. Unfortunately this created a stair-step affect on the back. I didn't want that on the front so I figured out how to abbreviate the first pattern repeat on every right side row. I don't know that I can really explain it because it involved a lot of Brenda Logic, but I think it worked.


Yes, six pages of hand-written directions is a little ridiculous, but it's working. Though I still have the stair step on the other side. Le sigh. I have two more inches before I cast off and then I just have to get through the other side of the sweater.