Bad at math

First: WAY TO GO RED SOX! Okay, I know I live in the New York area, but I can't help rooting for the Red Sox. Partly it's because I live in the NY Area and not NY itself that I have this love/hate relationship with NY. Short story, I root for the Boston teams whenever possible, even if it means rooting against someone local. Sort of like Randi adopted the Philly teams, well Mike helped there, I picked up Bos. Makes hockey season, when there is one, very interesting. Randi/Mike = Flyers, Rikki = Rangers, Mom= Devils, Me = Bruins. Baseball is slightly better as mom will root for any NY team and doesn't really pick between the Yankees and the Mets. I don't think she likes the Sox though and nearly threw me out last week when I made it obvious I had picked the Sox over the Yanks. Oh well.

Well the good news is I decided on which project I wanted to start after Alex's hat. The Hogwart's Scarf won the contest. Partly because I didn't have to wind any balls of yarn from skeins. The Lamb's Pride makes it really easy to use. I'll give them that!

Okay, what is it with casting on? CO 70 st. Sounds simple enough. I are a college graduate and should reasonably be able to count to 70, especially if I have a running count as I proceed. Sigh. I finished what the running count said was 70 and counted again. 71sts? Okay, so I took one off and counted again. This time it was 69. Oy. I cast on another stitch. 70! I counted again to make sure. And again.

I managed to knit the first stripe of burgundy and half of the yellow before the game ended and it was time for bed. On the train this morning, I knit more so by the time I got to the office, I had two rows to go on the second stripe. With a total of 19 stripes, not such bad progress.

Now the downside. For a math/science programmer type, math isn't always my friend. I have a bit of trouble with the grams to ounce conversions. I blame it on my age. Not that I'm old, I'm just of that generation where they did a half-assed, if any assed, job of teaching us the metric system after they had drilled the imperial system into my head. So while the pattern said that two 100gm/200yd skeins of EACH color were sufficient, I struggled with the grams to ounces, blah blah blah and only picked up one of each. I kind of missed the fact that the gram weight was in parens on the ball band. Blah.

This isn't such a terrible thing as I was finding the knitup stuff a bit scritchy from around my neck area. I have no problems with it on the inside of my wrists, but on my neck, yowsa. I'm pretty sure it is the mohair content in this yarn that is giving me problems. I think I'm going to use the two colors to make a coordinating hat for the scarf. I have the gauge and can start it up on the train tonight. Doh. I ordered some Brown Sheep Nature Spun in bordeaux and sunburst gold. Hmm.. Maybe I should hold off on the hat until I see how the colors blend when the yarn arrives. I guess I'm making Kat's hat tonight... or Koigu socks....

I think I found the pattern for the angora/silk yarn that I want to use. It is Wendy Knits Japanese Lantern Scarf. It should be quick and easy to knit and yet yield a beautiful scarfy thing.

No crafty pictures to post, so I wanted to put up one of my favorite pictures of my father with Alexander.