#&@$!!!

I spent most of Friday knitting in the waiting room of Ray's Maplewood Auto Service having 4 tires replaced and aligned and new brakes and master cylinder replaced.  It needed doing (because I just paid the car off--go figure!) and I'd been putting it off.  I found this garage in early summer and was immediately impressed with them.  The gal at the front desk obviously has mechanic experience in addition to great people skills.  I think what impressed me so much was that they sit down and EXPLAIN things to you about what is going on with your car and repair options and prices.  They do what I do with my patients in the hospital and I find you get a much better response when you know WHY things are the way they were.  Ever since, I bring my business and my knitting for any car repairs.  I thought their sign was pretty funny that day!

I finished up the second attempt of my jacket front side in their waiting room.  It is a Drops pattern.  They are a fabulous company with an entire library of free patterns...but they waste no verbiage in their patterns.  The instructions for the front side piece is one small paragraph that sounds like, "Cast on this many stitches, then every other row, increase this many stitches on the marked stitch.  At the same time, every 8th row increase this many on the right side and do this 4 times every 6th row, then 3 times every 4, and then twice every other..."  I have to write it all out and keep track of my rows and make tally marks for each thing I'm supposed to do.  Long story short...

 

...I was writing out my instructions for the other jacket front...and realized I'd screwed up AGAIN on the first jacket front!  I'd done my outer side increases every 4 rows instead of every 8.  In the piece on the right of the picture, you can see where the jacket widens and then is knit straight to the bottom edge.  It should have been a longer more gradual widening.  I could have done the same increases on the back pieces to make the jacket meet up, but I opted to start over yet again so the jacket doesn't have such a swoopy  increase at the hips.  The piece on the left of the picture is the THIRD attempt of the jacket side front with the more gradual increase.  I read a list of knitting tips and advice years ago and I've learned this to be true from personal experience:  If you find a mistake, always go back and rip it out and redo it as soon as you're aware of it.  If you don't, you will regret it more and more the further your work progresses.  This is so very true.  Take three....

I know it is fall and the official fragrance and flavor is pumpkin spice.  I kind of beg to differ.  I say if you want your house to smell awesome...just boil a chicken carcass!  Dave's birthday was this week and I cooked him a full roasted chicken dinner on Friday complete with a yellow cake with chocolate frosting as requested.  I love that his birthday is in early fall so I still have plenty of fresh herbs to work with.  The bird was rubbed with butter, rosemary and sage and roasted on a bed of onions, carrots and celery which all pave the way for a flavorful chicken stock!  So the stock is developing on the stove as we speak and the house smells great!