The Shawl, The Weekend, The Template

I made myself a tiny bit late to work this morning because I had to fix my shawl. I worked on a few rows at some point last week, and had started the fifth repeat of my nemesis, the first row of the blossom chart. (In this chart, it tells you to turn two stitches into nine at the ends and centers of the row, and three stitches into nine on the rest of the row. It requires needle acrobatics and sticking out of the tongue. Beautiful results, yes, but still nemesis-worthy.)

Well, by the time I got within the last few stitches of the row, I knew something was off. I should knit three together, turn two stitches into nine, and knit the three edging stitches. But there were only two to knit together, not three. At this point there were two options: knit two together and continue on as if I had knit three together, or tink back and find where I flubbed it, correct the mistake, and knit a half-row more of my nemesis row than called for in the pattern. I knew it would irritate me if the rest of the shawl was shifted one stitch over, so I chose the latter.

I almost lost some stitches and had a small heart attack, but otherwise it's almost back on track. I'll finish the broken bit at lunch.

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BAS visited me this weekend. First we visited the Eiffel Tower and made faces.



Then we had to stop by my office (a quick jaunt from France) so's I could make some sweet CDs for her trip back home. We had a thermal scanner installed at work, so we both had to pass through it first.



Curiously enough, we both scanned as cold. Must've been the tasty ice cream we had Friday night. I suppose birthday cake-flavored ice cream tends to do that to you.

Unfortunately, just before she'd gotten in the car to drive west on Friday, BAS found Blanca, the latest winged addition to their ever-expanding menagerie, dead on the floor of the cage. And she got an even sadder call on Saturday: her poor bird Zula had died as well. I had met Zula when I visited BAS' house last fall, and found her to be very sweet, if a bit noisy. The whole situation definitely put a damper on the whole weekend, but I think we had a good time despite it.

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I changed the template and got rid of the Works In Progress widget, and the book widget. WIPs will be back once I adjust it to the template. Books probably won't.