Sunday, September 26, 2010

Getting my feet wet

No, literally, we were getting our feet wet.

In case you missed the news, Wisconsin was hit with a lot of rain the past couple of days. Unfortunately, many of us found it wanting to visit our homes and experiencing the joys of flooding in one form or another. Although we live on the top of one of the biggest hills in the area, there is an underground spring and our water table sits high. This past Thursday, with the help of an overheated sump pump, it sat higher than usual and our basement flooded. We were very lucky and it was not as bad as many of our neighbors and friends, but as many know who have experienced flooding or water damage of any kind, a little water is still a very expensive and extensive amount of water to remove. Add to that the fact that Madison suffers with severe Asthma and is highly allergic to mold. Although we called immediately to get the Water Extraction crew to our home, they were so busy that it was still 24 hours before we moved to the top of the list (which was shockingly fast actually). During that short time, mold had already tried to form and they got to work to rid us of the pesky stuff. Luckily we're on our way. It will still be a while before our house is put back together. Our basement is completely finished (usually) and houses our family room, play room, Caleb's bedroom and bathroom, and a storage room.

I'm very frustrated by the loss and expense, but reminded that these are just material things and our family is safe and well, which is what is most important. Things will return to normal soon enough.

My positive attitude has nothing to do with the fact that no yarn or fabric was damaged in the flooding. I'm sure of it. I think.

Monday, September 13, 2010

I've got a feeling....

I've got a feeling that I shouldn't have ignored the gauge swatches I did for the Adams Rib Cap-Sleeve Wrap. They told me to knit it in an 8, the gauge was right in an 8. I had also knit the swatch in a 7, because I'm a loose knitter and always have to go down a needle size. It was a bit tighter, but I preferred how it looked. I also thought that seeing as this was a rib, it would be easy to block it to the size I want. I had seen many people of different sizes (large to small) try on the size medium sample at Stitches Midwest and it looked good on them all. I thought that if I knit the medium with a seven, it would be around a size small and would fit little ol' me. I'm getting nervous though now. Why would I choose to ignore the gauge swatch?!

IMAG0246

Have decided that I'm going to keep knitting on this and hope it blocks close enough to size. If not, I've just knit my daughter a really nice sweater that I'm going to be totally jealous. The next day or so will tell the fate of this project.