I Finally Finished

I finally finished what I had begun to refer to as The Neverending Scarf. I knit it from a ball of wool blend yarn I had leftover from making Joshua a sweater a couple of years ago. What I didn't realize was that this ball of yarn was an artesian ball. The yarn was reproducing itself at the other end faster than I could knit it up. Once I realized what was happening, I had to work at supersonic speeds to outknit its propensities of perpetual propagation. I succeeded, though I melted my favorite needles in the heat of my furious knitting pace, and finally finished the scarf.

Ok, not really, but it felt that way at times...Still, the scarf turned out nice.

Best of all, it is one more FO to cross off of my WIP list:

1. Prayer Shawl
2. Irish Hiking Scarf
3. Grey Scarf From Unknown Wool Blend
4. Red Heart Strata Scarf
5. Branching Out Lace Scarf
6. Texas Longhorn Scarf
7. First Time Socks
8. Socks using Magic Loop
9. Socks on DPNs using Knit Picks yarn
10. Socks from Red Heart Strata

I also finished the mid-month dishcloth--finally. I'd gotten two days behind on my rows, but yesterday I did both days worth and caught up. The big problem I'm having with these is that I don't like knitting at my computer. But at the same time, I don't want to print out 6 or 7 days worth of patterns and use up a bunch of ink and paper. I could wait until it is done and print the whole pattern out at once, but that kind of defeats the purpose of a knit-along.

Moving right along...



I actually got a good workout last night in class, for the first time since before I was sick. That was nearly a month ago. I was sweating buckets, breathing hard, and my heart rate was up. It felt good. After we did basics, sensei had James and me work with Barrett, Josh, and Blake on two man basics while he did other stuff with the rest of the class. Blake kind of gets on my nerves. James and I are trying to get Barrett and Josh through two man basics because they've got shodan grading coming up soon. Blake started whining that we weren't paying enough attention to him. I apologized, explaining that we were trying to get Josh and Barrett ready for testing. Blake says, "I'm testing, too, in April! I'm testing for my brown. That is just as important as black."


Only two things wrong with that statement, besides the obvious. 1) Two man basics isn't required for third grade brown. 2) Blake has been a purple belt for 4 years. If brown were really that important to him, maybe he should have been coming to class all that time. I don't think it's right that sensei is letting him test. For the last 4 years, Blake has been showing up maybe once every 6 months. Sometimes he'll come in and help teach the kids classes, but leaves before our class starts. About 3 weeks ago, he started coming back to class regularly, and sensei is going to let him test? If it were my dojo, he wouldn't be testing. He would have to show me that he is dedicated and committed before I would let him test.


But that's just me.

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