Now I know why my Mom fears the granny square

Why am I awake at 2 am? Ok, maybe that’s not a surprise; I suffer from a combination of insomnia combined with working nights, so I’m often up at 2 am… but tonight I’m awake for a special reason. I’m attempting to avoid the “second sleeve” curse on my hourglass sweater. So I’ve knitted my way through 2 episodes of Deep Space Nine and half of Star Trek IV. I’m at 10 inches on the sleeve, as you can see here

Last night I put the body onto waste yarn and tried it on. It’s going to be too big. Don’t get me wrong; it’s the size it’s supposed to be (the smallest one) it’s just that I’m apparently exceptionally teeny. The body is slightly short too. I got scared that it was going to be too long (my stitch gauge is spot on but my row gauge is off) so I somehow in my delusional state thought I had achieved 15″ and stopped. It’s actually around 14″, but I’ve decided not to fret. This sweater is made of yarn that’s mostly cotton, and I have every confidence that it will be highly blockable into a slightly longer state. Plus I’m extremely short waisted, so it’s no biggie. Most sweaters are too long for me anyway. As for the body… well, I’ll try to reserve judgement. I think it’s big, but I’ve been fooled before. I was convinced my green gable was like linebacker huge until I finished it. We’ll see… and if it turns out to big I’ll just give it to someone slightly larger than me for Christmas.

I’m taking a break from my night of endless stockinette. Remember those magazines I found from my step-grandma? I decided to read them. It’s funny – women’s magazines today never contain much in the way of actual sewing and knitting patterns. Sure, maybe the occasional craft, but these are crazy involved. And also just plain crazy.

These are from Family Circle in 1974… and yes, that is a yarn ponytail. Sure, it isn’t described that way, but it’s definitely acrylic yarn hair.

Patterns for the men in your life. This is the reason I avoided brown my entire life – memories of being dressed in coordinating poop brown and beige as a child.

I swear that poor child is wearing an afghan.

There are groovy decorating spreads too (from Woman’s day)

I would like to own every single thing in this room. Ok, maybe not the teal shag carpeting. And certainly not all in the same place. But I like the individual pieces. I wish we’d had this sort of home growing up… but our shag carpet was orange. Nothing this exciting.

Bet you didn’t know you need a special product to clean your wood paneling. I personally cannot imagine there was a time when people said things like “How can I preserve the natural beauty of my wood paneling?” I myself have been known to walk straight out of an open house the minute I saw paneling. I cannot and will not deal with its removal, and I also can’t deal with looking at it every day… and this is coming from the person who loves the color avocado in the kitchen.

Ok, enough time wasting… back to sleeve knitting with me. I’m off tomorrow, so I can rest up from the marathon then.