Today was a hard day. I had to give up my darling cat, Lilah, because she just couldn’t adjust to our new home. I know that the women at Stay-A-While will take wonderful care of her and try very hard to get her placed in a home that will be best for her. Still, it’s very hard. Right now she should be lying on the couch with me, purring and occasionally making her inquisitive “Mrew?” sound. I miss her.

When I got home this afternoon, I felt the need to start something new. I had started this last autumn - I did the gauge swatch and everything - but then I didn’t start it because it was a Provisional Cast-On and that scared me. Now I love the Provisional Cast-On. I felt the need for this yarn. It was healing when I used it to make the comfort shawl for Sarah - I’m hoping it’ll be healing again now. It’s springtime - time for fresh starts.

6/12/10 - Well crap. This was pretty much done that first weekend that I started it, but then I realized that I wasn’t sure how big to make it. I wanted the design to show up nicely, but since it’s silk, I wondered how it would block. I kept meaning to do a swatch of it and see how it turned out, but I kept getting sidetracked by other things - like The Scottish Sweater. I finally made a swatch and blocked the shit out of it, and it held the shape beautifully. So I thought, “Well, I can take away some of the rows I did. It’s too big!” So I ripped back tonight - not an easy thing to do with pure silk - and now it’s WAY too small. Darn it all. So I think I’m just going to reknit it and every 4 rows, try it on. I know that I can block it big but at the same time, there’s not a lot of give to silk so I need it to be wide enough to go around my arms.
Siiiigh - and for some reason, I was thinking that tonight was the night I could block it!

6/17/10 - I finished! I wanted to finish it last night so that I could wear it to the first Wade Oval Wednesday, but I just didn’t have the time. Today I didn’t work, so I had the time to do all the crocheting. It took me awhile because I did the first round of single crochet, then went to look up a video on crocheting through the back of the loop and realized that I had done the single crochet wrong, all wrong. I very rarely crochet, so I don’t remember how to crochet a lot of the time, and I was just too convinced that I knew what I was doing. I should have double-checked before I started. So I ripped out, did it correctly, and then started crocheting through the back of the loop. I had some issues with this section of the pattern; I think that it could have been more clear in how to do the decreases and how many to do, as well as where to do them. It’s just a little confusing about whether it’s just done on the underarm section and whether they’re all done at the same time. In any case, I figured out where I would want them because I had tried it on a few times and know that it was a little baggy under the arms and in the back. I did a second round where I did more decreases under the arms and in the center of the back because it was still a little loose there. I also decided to do a single crochet at the bottom of the sleeves. It was the perfect thing to wear today, driving past the lake with the sun sparkling on the water with the top down in my new convertible, on my way to give Dad his birthday gift.

6/18/10 - I forgot to say that I put a small green bead up at the top of the shrug in the final round of single crochets so that I would know which is the top and which is the bottom. It’s working out really well. One issue though? This yarn bleeds A LOT and since it cuts under my arms, it left a green tinge on my armpits!