Despite getting the bad news that my ex's grandmother passed away on Saturday, this weekend was otherwise quite successful. The big secret was that I went home on Saturday to surprise my Mom for her birthday (which is actually today). You have to understand, in my family, keeping a secret such as this is darn near impossible. The look on her face when I walked in and said I had saved myself a stamp as I handed her her birthday card was totally priceless! Equally amazing was the fact that her birthday present actually arrived on Saturday as well! Dad and I got her a charm bracelet from this Italian Charm bracelet site that everyone on HMB had talked about a while back. It actually looked pretty good and even fit once the comedy of trying to get the pieces apart and back together was completed. We all had a good laugh and some bruised fingers after that one. The only thing that ticked me off was that I ordered it on the 30th of Nov. and they were supposed to ship it in 3 days. It was postmarked the 9th of Dec.!! And their free shipping, 60 cents! At least it arrived on time. The three of us went out to dinner and even managed to agree on a movie that we all wanted to see. This is also nothing short of a miracle. We saw National Treasure which wasn't too bad. At one point I was beginning to wonder how long they were gonna drag the story line out, and I'm not exactly a Nick Cage fan, but it was actually quite good in the end.

In the meantime, I managed to get a bit of knitting done. Between hanging out at home and not feeling like doing anything when I got back to CT but watching Sunday night football and knitting, I finished the front AND back of the Quick Cable Sweater.

Sorry about the pic being on its side but I couldn't get it to rotate this morning for some reason. As you can see, I went with the advice of my fellow knitters and just left the cable on the back. My mom thinks it will be more padding and warmth for my spine. When you put it that way, sounds good to me! (And thanks for the extra stitch holders Mom!)

The pattern says to block the pieces before putting them together but I don't know how I'm going to do that. These pieces are kinda big and I don't have a lot of room. I also have to do a three needle bind off to join the front and back and I've never done that before. I'm thinking about doing that before I block them just because I think I'm going to need all that yarn that is still attached to them to finish the sleeves. And blocking and joining advice out there?

I'm really enjoying this sweater. It isn't too boring to knit and it is totally feeding my need for seeing immediate progress. I think it might even be good for a last minuet gift if you didn't wait until the absolute last minuet.


Oh by the way,

Bills 37 - Browns 7

We are actually over 500! Can this be true?!