Cheryl Oberle broke my sweater!

Now that I've got your attention. She actually did. But it was a good thing. It turns out when you steek you're supposed to stretch the fabric VERTICALLY instead of horizontally as I did. It caused the fabric to bunch up in places which made the neck lie strangely. She said that if she hadn't broken it, it would have broken when I first tried to wear it. It's actually very nice to have someone who can show me this stuff. I read everything that I could find on steeks and nowhere did it mention the vertical stretching. I have a few ideas on how to fix it and the neck does look much better.

So I'm now on Day 4 of no TV and I'm noticing serious behaviour differences in my oldest child. I may not have written about it but I have a theory that preschoolers are bipolar by nature, one minute the sweetest thing in the universe and next so scary Rosemary's Baby would run away. Well since we instituted the television ban, not only has L been more sweet, but she's doing things that I've known she can do for months but fought with her constantly to get done. It used to take 2 hours to get her ready for school and even then she still didn't eat breakfast. This week she has been dressed and fed a full hour and a half before we need to leave. We used to joke about how grumpy she is in the morning. This morning, as I got ready to take a shower she said to me, "Mommy. I need to see a smile!" "That's better. No more sad face" Which she then demonstrated for me and ran to get dressed herself. J's behavior hasn't changed at all but then he's not really that attached to TV. I think we will continue to have a No TV in the Morning rule. It's making things run so much smoother. There's even been less whine. I realize it may be coincidental and all fall apart next week, but hey, I'll take it.

I did a closer read of Alison's Ankle Sock and the sock pattern she used as inspiration. There is no such thing as a backwards yarn over on the knit side. It's a regular yarn over. Which means, I WAS DOING IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME! Except I probably messed up the knit togethers. Triple Argh. To make myself feel better I bought some new needles and pretty Tofutsie (sp?) from Posh. She's having a sale, you know. And then I went to the Recycled Lamb because I needed a size 5 16-inch circular to finish my sweater. And then I had to have these two thick and thins from the clearance bin. Oh look! It's raining again. Woo.

Added note at 4:16 pm. I was able to fix the sweater. No problem. :) Now I'm working on the arm holes...