Fell Off the Sock Wagon

After I finished my modified-Monkey, I thought I'd cast on right away for its twin. But that Elizabeth Zimmermann Baby Surprise Jacket (from here on to be referred to as the BSJ - I can't keep typing all of those words) kept waving at me and whispering, Make me next, you know you want to. So here I go.

I'm using my monster skein of Sugar'n Cream cotton in Robin Egg. It was my Michael's $5.00 bargain - 14 oz. and 710 yards. Now that's a big ball of string! I cast on the 160 stitches, knit along happily, using stitch markers, but still counting stitches because I never trust myself. I found a helpful set of notes about this pattern and they really helped me to make sense of EZ's brilliant, but confusing-to-me, pattern. And after 17 rows, I knew I was in trouble. I had too many stitches, so I'd messed up somehow on my decreases. Tried to figure it out. Couldn't. Darn it. I was afraid to rip it out the bad rows and try to get it back on the needles, so I tried to insert a smaller needle into a earlier row where I was pretty sure I was okay. I went to visit my old friend on KnittingHelp.com and watched the video explaining how to insert a needle into a destination row, before ripping. Her video was really helpful, but I wasn't successful. I think I missed some stitches - okay, I know I missed 3 stitches and just got frustrated and sweaty and had to call it off. I ripped out the whole freakin' thing and started over. It was not a happy night. M. had to point out that I had "worked on that all day!" Thanks, buddy. I knew that. That was several hours of my life that I'll never get back.

I cast on 160 stitches - again. I'm being careful. I'm pretty sure I know what I was doing wrong. To decrease, I'm supposed to slip 1, k2tog, pass slipped stitch over. Decrease 2 stitches each time. I think I was either forgetting to pass the stitch over or forgetting to k2tog before I passed the stitch over. (I know you're thinking, do I really need to know this? Yes, you do. It helps me to talk about it. Very therapeutic.)

Here's my BSJ after 13 rows. Lovely.

Here's an attempt at showing how it might lay when it's done. I think the corners are the bottom fronts of the cardigan. Maybe. Hard to tell at this point. But I love it anyway.
DISCLAIMER: No cats were harmed in the making of this photograph.

Emmie loves to get inside things. It's her mission in life to get her entire body inside a variety of small items. She successfully worked her way inside of the zipper bag in which M.'s new mattress pad was packaged. What a goober. Believe me when I tell you that the bag remained unzipped the entire time she was in there (maybe 3 minutes) and after taking this picture, I lifted the flap to keep her from using the bag as a sauna. This lifting action only served to tick Emmie off, and she crawled out, mumbling about how I'd ruined the whole thing for her. Geez.