12/15: I tried this pattern and ripped it out about 100 times. My tension was just too tight so I couldn’t get the K3TOG. The trick is to relax and not knit too tight. You need enough room to be able to get the needle under all 3 stitches so you have to loosen up.

12/16: Okay, I took some percocet, a muscle relaxant and a few other drugs (for fibromyalgia) and now my tension is looser LOL Now maybe I can K3TOG.

Finally, I got one section done! It is a bit dark in here so the yarn looks gray in the picture. It is like country blue.

Now that I have the tension under control this pattern seems almost easy. I started to notice it was getting tight again and it was almost time to take more medicine. I guess I must really tense up when I am in pain.

12/17: Okay, so I have this sweet beagle. I love her very very much but she jumped up on the couch and into my lap and when she jumped back down she had my knitting wrapped around her legs. After she ran around the living room and tied all the furniture together I finally got her to stop long enough to get the yarn off of her. There weren’t very many stitches still on the needle so this is officially frogged. I’ll start over soon.

12/20: I am really happy with how this is turning out this time. I have not made any mistakes and my knitting looks more even. I am getting so much better at doing the K2Tog & K3Tog. I also decided to try out the Provisional cast one since so many people mentioned that it made it easier to seam together.

12/22: I finally finished! Now I am looking into how to kitchner stitch it together.

Notes

Here are my notes of my stitch counts per row - maybe someone else will benefit from them.

The first row and odd rows are all just knit so I only list even rows then the number of stitches left on my needle (unknit) then I use a / for the turn and then the number of stitches knit on the odd row. So the total of both equals the total number of stitches after the odd row. Hope that makes since.

Row 2: 1/18
Row 4: 2/18
Row 6: 3/18
Row 8: 4/16
Row 10: 5/14
Row 12: 6/12
Row 14: 7/12
Row 16: 8/12
Row 18: 9/12
Row 20: 10/10
Row 22: 11/8
Row 24: 12/6 = 18 stitches YAY!!! Finally!