#@#!!!!%&*

Argh... There has been another wrench thrown into the Lacy Skirt with The Bane of My Existence... I mean, the Lacy Skirt With Bows. The other day (and I was too ticked off to blog about it at the time) I thought to myself, I have the whole day off. I think I'll finish this skirt so I can move on to something new. Let me lay out this half of the skirt next to the finished half and see how far I have to go.

That's when I noticed this glaring mistake.

I effing skipped a whole tier of lace on the second half and knitted about eight inches of stockinette stitch-- from two balls of yarn, mind you-- before noticing it!!!! I haven't even been able to bring myself to frog it yet. All of this on top of the fact that I was basically knitting it with two different dye lots that were creating a striped effect. I had convinced myself to persevere and that I would be able to soak or boil the skirt into a one-colored, nicely blended panel.

In order to calm myself and convince myself that I have any knitting skills AT ALL, I cast-on for a Mason-Dixon dishrag and contentedly knitting around and around. Of course, I then noticed a twist in the knitting... pulled out the needles... ripped back... and cast on, again. All that said and done, I have completed a washcloth and am saving it for my first bath in my new house. That's right, we have a house of our very own under contract! That's the silver lining to this blog post.

Remember those old metal buckets I found on D.'s company's land? Well, they have become my dandy little portable herb garden. I've made two batches of pesto from the basil and have frozen it all for winter. Now that I will have my own permanent garden plot, I want to research planting a dye garden.

The only other thing I have (sporadically, I admit) knitted this past month has been Eunny Jang's Entrelac Socks in a fabulous orange Trekking XXL colorway. They have been on standby due to the heat and my recent ability to turn everything I knit into a pile of kinky frogged-out yarn.

Today I got my Fall IK in the mail, and I think I will curl up with it for awhile. I really love the cover sweater, designed by Norah Gaughan. I have the perfect yarn in my stash for this project, but I have been holding out for the sweater that Stephanie Japel is wearing on the jacket of her book, Fitted Knits. She promises a pattern soon, and it looks like the most comfy cardigan ever. I wonder what the Tilted Duster looks like when hanging open? That might make my decision for me... I will keep my eyes peeled to see if anyone cranks one out.

Keep me posted about what has been happening in your knitting world... Oh, and I almost forgot! I have a seat reserved for me to hear Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, the Yarn Harlot herself, speak in Atlanta in September!