Soy Free Update

So I’m still sticking with the soy free diet and things are going swimmingly.  I’ve had a few run-ins with some natural flavoring and some issues with butter, but aside from that, I’ve been feeling great!  My moods are still better, I’m clearer headed, and my heart palpitations have declined greatly…My weight has stabilized at around 135lbs (I’m only about 15lbs heavier than I was at my high school graduation).  I’ve also found a few friends who are possibly in the same boat with soy who are joining me on the soy free experiment bandwagon.  Not that I want someone to have a food allergy, but it feels good to not be alone and it feels good to be able to help someone else out.

I’ve also had some run-ins with some well meaning friends who, in a push to be helpful, practically cornered me (or so it felt) on my facebook page and were cramming the whole “gloom and doom, get to a doctor NOW!” stuff down my throat.  I did take a stand and asked them nicely to back off as I was feeling pretty bullied and yelled at and they turned around, kicked it up a notch and pretty much lambasted me for posting about my “ailments” and told me that I shouldn’t post if I didn’t want the comments.   Basically a blame the victim kinda thing.   “Well, she asked for it!”  I wonder if I should start commenting on my friends statuses who always talk about drinking/partying/getting wasted and ask if they need to go to an AA meeting.  Apparently, I post about my health too much and that warrants an inquisition about why I won’t see a doctor.  Maybe those drinking statuses are a cry for an alcoholic intervention…It’s the pot calling the kettle black, really.  In hindsight, I made the mistake of posting about my health on my wall and I’m not going to do that anymore.  Lesson learned.  Oh, and I’m sure I just pissed someone off… 🙂

I’m one of those stereotypical facebookers who post about exactly what they are doing/feeling, etc.  I don’t do it to get comments or pity.  I’m not a troll.  I just put stuff out there.  Most of the time my posts revolve around my knitting or housework and what I’ve accomplished or plan to accomplish for the day.  Same for this blog.  I just write and if my day to day stuff and experiences help others, great, if someone comes here and can offer help to me, even better.  I’m not just posting to get people to visit my blog.  Do I like to see my blog stats go up, yes, because I can only hope that my blog has been, in some way, helpful to those visitors.  I just feel like I’ve lost an outlet for my thoughts.

Anyway, I’ve learned a few more things though trial and error. Most of the teas in my cupboard contain soy lecithin or natural flavors.  I’m down to 2-3 boxes out of the like 8 that are in there.  I’m bummed because I can no longer have the buffalo wing sauce that’s in my fridge.  I love buffalo wings and spicy stuff…Also, antacids contain natural flavors and have a tendency to make my stomach hurt and my heart pound on top of the indigestion….yeah, won’t make that mistake again.  lol  I’ve learned that benedryl helps if I have accidentally eaten something with soy or butter.  Good to know!  I’ve also learned that the hand lotion I’ve been using contains soybean oil.  Nice.  At least I know that it’s not a contact allergy/sensitivity.  I’ve been using the lotion every day since I’ve cut out eating soy and I haven’t noticed any ill feelings or rashes.  I am going to find a soy free lotion as I have terribly dry hands in the winter and I have to put lotion on regularly or my hands will crack and bleed.  I’m slightly germophobic, so I’m always washing my hands and that doesn’t help the dryness.

At some point I have to post about my knitting and Bug’s birthday and birthday party from this past weekend.  I also plan to post about the soy free strawberry cake from scratch that I made…though this cake ended up bothering me…probably from the butter – it used 2 sticks!   I know it wasn’t the homemade meringue frosting as the night before the party I was eating it while decorating the cake and I was fine.  Either way, the cake was delicious, despite it’s density (it was more fudge brownie like than cake like) and the fact that it made my stomach hurt.

So, that’s the update for this week.  I’m continuing to improve and I’m happy about that.  Yay for good things!

Ouch, That Hurt

So I’ve been doing pretty well with avoiding all things with milk.  I’ve still had a few twinges of the usual pain, but they’ve been few and far between and don’t last as long as usual, usually just a few minutes

Last night I made the mistake of not looking at the label of what I was eating for dinner.  I made fish fillets, fries and mixed veggies.  Stupid me didn’t look at the fish fillet bag until I started feeling funny about 30 minutes after I polished off 2 fillets and the rest of my plate.  Yep, the breading contained milk.  DOH!  I’m also concerned because it has wheat in it as well…makes me think that it could be a gluten/diary combo issue as I’ve had twinges after eating the wraps, which also contain wheat and soy.  Those twinges, like I said, didn’t last long but they were there.  But, I know I can eat white toast without having issues and I know that contains wheat and soy…

Darling Hubby is on my case to start trying dairy products again.  I really wanted to give myself a couple weeks to 1.) keep track of what I’m eating and when (and if) my stomach hurts again. 2.) to give myself time to adjust to not having certain foods. and 3.) to give myself time to possibly feel human.  When my stomach hurts I’m miserable and end up making everyone around me miserable.  I really just want to curl up in a ball and sleep and not deal with anyone when I’m not feeling good and I just can’t do that, not with 2 kids and a house to keep up on.  I end up being short with everyone, I yell a lot more and I don’t have motivation to do anything, even my beloved crafts or reading.

I might have to go with a fresh fruit/veggie and tea diet…lol  That seems to be the only stuff that I know for sure doesn’t bother me!  I’ve had a cup of chamomile tea today for the first time and I actually really enjoyed it.  I also ate a banana and I’m feeling pretty good (aside from being tired, aching all over and the headache I woke up with, but that’s a whole other issue!)  I know I can eat apples, bananas, fruit cocktail from the can,  strawberries, grapes, tomatoes and lettuce without issue.  I know I can eat mixed veggies (carrots, corn, peas and green beans) and baby carrots.  I’m fairly sure broccoli (cooked) doesn’t bother me.

Tonight I’m double checking that pasta doesn’t bother me.  I’m cooking for craft night again and making pasta, some jarred sauce and some Italian bread.  We’ll see how that affects me. Better make sure I check that pasta and sauce first, huh…you never know now a days.

The major downside of this diet experiment is that fact that I can’t have chocolate…that’s what I’ve been craving lately (it’s like me being pregnant…I wanted nothing more than a big cold sub with lots of turkey and cheese, and  since cold lunch meat was on the banned foods list, it made me want it all the more!)  A friend suggested that I try dark chocolate, but even that contained milkfat.  It’s probably for the best that I’m not eating all the junk food like I was.  I’m gonna lose weight!  lol  I’m already down to 137lbs…that’s 3lbs lower than my weight loss goal when I was doing the 30 Day Shred and 11 lbs lighter than I was when I got pregnant with Fidget, 3 years ago.  I just wish the new size 12/14 jeans that I bought weren’t too loose already!

This is a crazy journey…I’m really hoping that I can figure it out and be able to live a happy life.  I do hate being miserable and not feeling well.

What a Difference a Day Makes

So yesterday I decided to cut out all dairy to see if it was the cause of my stomach pain.  Since around 10am yesterday I haven’t had a single drop of dairy, despite everyone in the house scarfing down the homemade macaroni and cheese and the buffalo wing potato chips that contain milk.  My stomach has been totally pain free.  Yay!  *doing a happy dance!*

I’m really hoping this will be the answer I’ve been looking for.  I know I really shouldn’t get my hopes up since it’s really only just been 24 hours, but it looks promising.

I just hope it’s not a placebo effect and I’m just convincing myself that I’m feeling better cause I want the pain to stop.  I’ve been told before that it’s all in my head and while I don’t really think that’s the case, I could see how others would see it that way.  It’s one of the reasons that I tried not to complain about it often…I figured no one would believe me.  Even when I was a kid, I can remember from 3rd grade on that there were many days when my stomach would hurt for no apparent reason and I was forced to suffer though school because no one believed me that my stomach could hurt all the time.   The school nurse and I were practically best friends I saw her so often!

I’m sure the time when I was 14 when I went through my “not eating anything phase” to impress a boy didn’t help matters any.  I lost like 10lbs in a little over a week that way and after a while got to where I felt horrible no matter if I ate or didn’t eat.  So not healthy, that’s for sure!  But then, I started dating Darling Hubby and things improved.  I found a love of food again, started eating regularly, gained back some weight and didn’t feel sick all the time, but I still had days when my stomach just hurt for no apparent reason.  Maybe all the time it was just milk that was doing me in.  I’m still holding out hope that I after a couple weeks I can go back to having some dairy…not having yogurt is kinda depressing.  That’s all I really wanted last night for a snack, that and those buffalo wing Ruffles that Darling Hubby brought home when he stopped at the store to get me some lettuce, a tomato and some wraps so I could make a chicken caesar wrap for lunch today.  I adore Buffalo wing food and sadly, they contained milk.  😦  But, I made due with some fruit cocktail, some lemon flavored raisels and a spoonful of peanut butter.

I’m trying not to get my hopes up, but I have a good feeling about this exclusion diet.

A Health Experiement

Since around the summer of 2007, I started having pain in my stomach after eating.  At first it was tolerable, not happening that often, but now, it seems to happen several times a week.  The question is, what is the culprit that’s causing the issue?

I have a feeling it’s dairy, or at least milk.  I began noticing that when I’d have a big steaming mug of hot chocolate, my stomach would start to hurt almost instantly, well, at least within 30 minutes.  The reason that I don’t think it’s all dairy, including cheese and yogurt, is because for a while I was only eating yogurt and was fine and sometimes I can have mozzerella cheese either sliced or melted on pizza and not have any issue.  I also have a feeling that there is a cumulative effect going on.  If I have milk in the morning, in say a cup of tea, if I eat a yogurt or some pizza later in the day, I’ve already exposed myself to whatever was in the milk that’s bothering me so when I eat other dairy it causes the pain to return.

My plan now, for the next couple weeks at least, is to cut out dairy as best I can and see if I have any improvement.  If I start seeing a decrease in my stomach pain, I’ll gradually add in the yogurt, since it’s easier to digest, and provided there is no issue again, I’ll try cheese.  I also plan to keep track of what I’m eating on what day to see if there is any other correlation between other food and the pain.  Over the summer I seem to remember a week when I ate nothing but homemade chicken Caesar wraps and I never had an inkling of pain…maybe I should eat nothing my wraps and salads…

Oh, and I’ve already cut caffeine out of my diet.  I’m only drinking caffeine free Pepsi (and that’s only for Craft Night…I really only have Pepsi then), which I drank all through Bug’s pregnancy and I’ve switched to decaf chai tea and caffeine free herbal teas.  I’ve noticed a slight decrease in the amount of energy I have most days, but I’ve found that I no longer hit that 4pm wall of exhaustion when my body crashes.

If I fail to determine the cause of the pain, I guess I’ll have to break down and visit a doctor.  I really should go see one as I haven’t been to a non-OB-GYN in years…Bad, I know, but I’m always afraid they are going to tell me the worst…and I just don’t want to hear it.  I’m like my mom and prefer to suffer in silence, even though that silence has a tendency to affect everyone around her.

Making It Work

For Christmas I got an MP3 player from Darling Hubby.  It’s something that I’ve wanted for a while now and I’m really loving it.  It will help me get through the boring chores like folding laundry, dishes, sweeping/mopping, etc.  I don’t have a radio in every room and I usually do my cleaning while Fidget naps, so I tend to try to stay quiet.

So I have this tiny little MP3 player, cute purple and blue earbuds and Outlander the Musical to rock out to while I’m cleaning.  For those of you who enjoy Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, Outlander the Musical is a musical adaptation written to go along with the first book.   I love it, except for the woman they chose to do Jaimie’s sister Jenny’s voice…she sounds like an elderly Chinese woman, but I digress.  I can sing and dance around while cleaning and no one is the wiser.  🙂

Another perk of having a little MP3 player is that I can use it in my car.  The only down side is that it won’t work in my car…For some reason when I plug it into my USB port in my car I get nothing…I called the dealership and brought it in to be looked at.  They deterimed that the UBS/AUX port wasn’t sending signals to the stereo, so they ordered the part to replace it.  I had the new part installed yesterday and when I went out into the parking lot and tried it before I left, it still didn’t work, even though they assured me it did.  The tech ended up coming out and taking a look with me.  They only tried it with an auxilliary cable and his smart phone and not a USB cable.  I know my USB cable isn’t faulty since it works with my computer to both charge the player and transfer data.  After a few tries of him running back into the shop a couple times (which I felt bad about since it was like 20 degrees out and windy) for a couple USB cables he determined that it just wasn’t working.

He ended up taking it back into the shop and looking at it again in the warmth and decided that it’s possibly the radio not receiving the signals from the port.  He did tell me that this was an updated port since the original model that came with the car had a tendency to malfunction…Great!  Our next step is to order and install a whole new radio…Which means another trip and time spent waiting for that to be installed  (at least I was able to get 4 rows knitted on my Bella Sweater and read a little of A Breath of Snow and Ashes this time around.)  I’m hoping that this is the last time…It’s starting to seem silly to go through all the trouble just so I can have a little extra music, but it would be nice to be able to switch between all my music without having a ton of cd’s clogging up my glove box…

The car is 16 months old, so it should have worked from the get go, but I had no way of knowing since I never had reason to use it.  The only good thing is that it’s all still under warranty, so I don’t have to pay anything out of pocket…or you can believe that I’d just say forget it.  Hopefully this time we can make it work…fingers crossed for me.

What’s on the Needles?

Today is the first snow day of the 2010-11 school year for Bug.  We are getting quite a bit of snow and as of 6:30 this morning had about 4 inches on the ground with the possibility of 9-15 total by this afternoon.  Darling Hubby braved the snowy roads and drove into work (they never close!) and I’m hoping that they send them home early…but I won’t hold my breath.  It has been coming down pretty steadily, so who knows what’s on the ground…I do know that the snowplow went through twice, so the end of the driveway will need to be cleared.  Not sure if I’ll attempt to do it before Darling Hubby gets home or if I’ll just wait and let him do it…I have to see how Fidget is this afternoon.

I’m not sure what today will bring for me, Bug and Fidget, but I plan to stay warm, whatever we do.  We’ll probably play a little on the Kinect and I hope to get some more knitting done while Fidget naps later.  Fidget is officially crawling now.  He started on New Years Day and once he really figured out what he was doing he just took right off.  He’s also started pulling himself up on the coffee table…not to standing, but he gets himself upright on his knees.  I keep telling him he needs to master crawling better before he starts pulling up and walking!  Speaking of Fidget, he’s nearly 8 months old now and is just starting to get his bottom 2 teeth…Bug had at least 4 teeth by this point, probably more.  It’s true when they say each kid is different.

Anyway, I wanted to write about my crafting projects.  I’m still been working on Bella’s New Moon Hooded Cardigan since December 5th and I’m happy to report that I’m almost done!  I’ve been doing a couple rows here and there each day and last night I managed about 10 rows at craft night.  I’m about 30 rows away from starting the hood and then I have to make the pocket tops and do some finishing up.  I’m really happy with how it’s coming out.  The only thing that I’m upset about is that one of the stitch holders I used was red and some of the paint wore off onto the sleeve (underarm specifically)  I’m hoping that it will wash out.  To me it’s a rather obvious pink spot on a cream colored sweater.  😦

Here’s a picture of the cardigan in it’s half way done state. If you look to the left hand side of the picture (under the right arm), you can sorta see the pink spots. 😦 Otherwise, I love it!

I’m hoping that I’ll finish it in the next couple weeks so I can start on a couple new projects (I have start-itis and want to start something new, but I’m being good!)  Things that need to be completed by the beginning of April.  The first thing is I’m going to finish the dress that I started over 2 years ago for the wedding that never was.

It’s really sad that it has been over 2 years and I’m still pretty pissed off and hurt by what happened with those dresses.  I still feel like I was taken advantage of and wasted my time doing something for someone who didn’t even say thank you for all that I did to help her out.  She told me to just be thankful she didn’t pick $125 dresses from the bridal store and be happy I was only out $50…no mention of the weeks I spent cutting out fabric, pinning, and sewing I did to make 4 dresses for her!  Oh, and she didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me in person that the wedding was postponed (I got a generic card in the mail like all the other guests.)  Yeah, I’m still pretty bitter about the whole thing…but, I digress.

My plan is to move past all that and do what I originally intended…finish my dress and wear it to a wedding!  My friend Leana from Craft Night is getting married in April and rather than go out and buy a new dress (I already have to buy a suit for Bug since he’s her ring bearer) I’m going to wear something I already have.  With a little modification (I’m thinking going knee length rather than floor), I think the dress can be appropriate for an early spring wedding.  I really just need to find a zipper, which will only cost a couple bucks.  The 2nd project goes along with the first.  I’m going to knit myself a wrap/scarf to wear with the dress.  I’m thinking the Clapotis (rav link).  It seems that everyone is making one (there are over 16,800 projects on Ravelry!) and while I’m not usually one to jump on the bandwagon it looks like it will be a quick knit and functional for both wearing to the wedding and for wearing later on in a casual setting.  I’m just debating about what color to make.  I’m thinking maybe I’ll make it in a cream color (the same color as my Bella Cardigan) as it would be a nice color to go with the light purple satin in the dress.  I’ll have to see what yarn is out there when I finish the dress.

Off to shovel out a spot so I can walk the dogs and assess the driveway situation while Bug is playing on the kinect.  Hopefully I’ll get a row or 2 done before Fidget wakes from his nap.  Happy snow day everyone!

Not So Family Friendly’s

Tonight Darling Hubby wanted to take us out for dinner.  I wasn’t really in the mood to cook a home cooked meal…I was just going to throw some frozen chicken cordon bleu and some tater tots into the oven and call it dinner…so we decided to go to Friendly’s, which is one of Bug’s favorite places to eat, aside from McDonalds.  While we were waiting for our meals to be served there was an incident that left both me and Darling Hubby scratching our heads and saying, “What was that? Seriously?”

The restaurant was filled with people, mostly families with kids ranging in age from a newborn in a car seat/carrier to around 10 years old.  Completely out of the blue the man sitting 2 booths behind me (with his wife, infant and preschool age son) and the 20 something “I’m too cool to take off my sunglasses inside” girl in the booth to my left start having a fight.  The F bomb was dropped…not once, not twice, but three times between these 2 people!  I was completely gobsmacked (to steal a phrase from Suzy) and actually covered Bug’s ears with my hands.  This is a FAMILY RESTAURANT, people!  Seriously? You are going to start a fight with a complete stranger in the middle of a restaurant filled with children?  That’s almost as bad as tackling and beating the crap of of Chuck-E-Cheese with a horde of children watching.

Darling Hubby and I talked about the whole thing after we left and neither of us can come up with the reason these people (obviously total strangers) started fighting.  They just started swearing at each other, saying something about having a conversation with someone and staring…I have no clue…really.  The whole restaurant became silent and the servers who were taking orders just stood around, obviously as flabbergasted as the rest of us.

The whole thing was pretty short lived, especially when the manager came over, but I just can’t believe the behavior some people decide they can display in public, especially when there are several kids around, including your own impressionable son.  I seriously had to stop myself from turning around and telling the man to watch his language there are children present.  I’m sure had I done so it would have opened up a whole other can of something I don’t want Bug to see.  I thought before I spoke and I kept my mouth shut.

I just wonder how often that man’s little boy sees his father swear at complete strangers?  I wonder how that little boy will behave when he reaches adulthood, if his children will bear witness to him swearing at complete strangers and dropping the F bomb like it totally proper for an everyday public conversation.

I know that this sort of thing happens all the time.  People swear.  I’m no saint…I have a potty mouth…I’ll admit it, but when there are children present or other people whom I think it is impropper to swear around, I clean up my act.  I don’t have random outbursts with strangers in restaurants filled with families and their kids.  I think before I speak and this is something these 2 didn’t do and it makes me sad; Sad that Bug is growing up in a world where words that were once taboo to say now flow off the tongue like water over a waterfall…fast and furious.

Plain and simple, I just wish people would think before they speak.  You not only hurt others when you fly off the handle dropping swear words left and right, but you make yourself look like a complete fool.  I for one don’t want to play the part of the King’s Jester, so I keep my tongue in check.

30 Day Shred – Day 5 – Didn’t Happen

Today was supposed to be day 5 for me, but it just didn’t couldn’t happen.  After my session yesterday I was feeling weak and out of sorts and literally spent much of the day curled up in the fetal postion on the couch.  I had plans for the evening (friends coming over for our Thursday roleplaying game) and I’d really wanted to play, so I showered and toughed it out.  I made it through the session, feeling pretty crappy (everyone could tell) and Darling Hubby kept telling me to just go to bed, but I didn’t want to miss anything, so I stayed.  I probably should have gone to bed, but I don’t think it would have mattered any.

From about 10pm until around 6:30, I swear, I was in the bathroom every 30 – 60 minutes.  I’m tired now, but the nausea in my stomach is gone and the rumbling in my intestines has calmed itself to a dull grumble every now and again.

Darling Hubby, along with one of his friends,  seems to think it’s the exercising, while I’ll still contest that it is just food poisoning or a tummy bug…although I’m still trying to figure out how only I would have gotten food poisoning if we all at the same things for dinner this week…I did handle some raw chicken and some raw eggs on Wednesday, so maybe I got a case of salmonella?

So, for now, I’m resting and drinking lots of ginger ale and trying to will whatever it is to go away.  I have a wedding reception to go to tomorrow (for people I don’t even know, mind you…I feel like a wedding crasher) so I’m hoping I’ll be right as rain by then.  I’m also missing out on the first trip to the park this year.  Darling Hubby came home early and had planned for us to take a picnic lunch, but I just wasn’t feeling up for it.  I’m still feeling kinda weak and didn’t want to run the risk of needing to find a bathroom (the ones at the park might not be open cause the pool is still closed…Plus, Darling Hubby hates when I’m miserable, so the best for all involved was for me to just stay home and be miserable all by myself.  I hope they have a lot of fun.  Bug really wanted to fly his kite, so I’m hoping that there will be enough wind for him.

I’m thinking that I’m going to take a break from the exercising for a few days.  I was planning on skipping the weekend anyway.  I’ll probably try again on Monday.  I think I may also look into getting some gatorade.  A friend suggested I might have flushed my system too much by drinking more water so in order to keep me hydrated, as well as keep my electrolytes up, I think I’ll try gatorade for a while.  Hopefully this will pass and I can get back on track.  I do want to achieve my goal, but at the same time, I don’t want to be sick…

Crochet Connundrum

I’ve hit yet another road block with the Gatsby Sweater I’ve been crocheting for Darling Hubby.  I finished both the front and the back panels and added the ribbing at the bottom to both.  The front panel is slightly larger width wise than the back, but it’s workable…next come the sleeves.  I started out and measured the bottom of the sleeve which should have been around 11.75″…mine was 14″.  I started the back panel with the G and finished the front panel with the same G hook…and well, they are 2 different sizes.  I guess I finally got comfortable with the pattern since we worked out our differences, so to speak, and my gauge has apparently loosened up.  Have I mentioned before that I have gauge issues?

Well, I tried moving down to the F hook I used to make the waist ribbing….the sleeve was still to wide.  I had to go all the way down to my E hook (I don’t have anything smaller) and finally got the sleeve to be the proper width at the bottom.  It sucks, majorly.  I’m using Lion Brand wool-ease and with the small E hook it snags at every turn and I’m just having such a tough time with it.  To top it all off, I’m having issue getting the pattern right.  It seems that every time I add in the extra hdc’s one side gets longer than the other.  It’s just very frustrating and I’m not sure I even want to finish it because of all the snags I keep hitting.  I do want to get it finished because I promised Darling Hubby, but now, I don’t know if I’ll get it finished by Easter, which is my “deadline.”

In the mean time, while I’m procrastinating picking up that E hook again, I’ve been looking at crocheted blankets.  Bug got accepted into the Montessori Magnet School here in the city for Pre-K and in looking at the class supply list for the current year I noticed that he’ll get to bring a small baby sized blanket with him, probably for nap/quiet time.  I wanted to make something special for Bug, something unique that no other kid would have.  Right now I have 2 patterns.  One is a Spider-man round ripple and the other is the Wheels on the Bus Quilt.  Bug would choose the Spider-man blanket, but I’m leaning toward the Bus quilt.  It’s a standard blanket shape which I can easily shrink down to “baby blanket” size and it’s very adorable.  Plus, I think it’s very fitting for when he goes to school for the first time.  I can also personalize it with Bug’s name on the side of the bus.  I have plans to modify the layout of the picture, making it more symmetrical and going down a hook size to make the squares 2″ rather than 2.5″ giving me a blanket approximately 28×36″ plus border.

Herein lies my connundrum.  Do I keep working on Darling Hubby’s Sweater, fighting with it until I eventually get it done, probably stressing myself out and making more and more mistakes or do I start working on making the bus quilt for Bug…I mean, I’ve got until September to get the blanket done and I told myself I’d get the sweater done by Easter.  I just have a strong desire to work on something other than that confounded sweater!  lol  Just a little secret…I started making some black sqares just to try out the pattern and I’m enjoying it.

But, I’m going to be good and go pick up my E hook and attempt to once again work out my differences with Good Ol’ Gatsby…sigh…I did make a vow…

Wardrobe Malfunction In The Making

So I’ve been working on the Gatsby Sweater by Peter Franzi (Rav link) for Darling Hubby on and off for some time now.  I recently mentioned that just a few days ago I finished the back panel and started working on the front.  Things were going fine.  I’ve made about 12 inches of progress on the front (out of 23.5″ required for the XL size) and I think the pattern and I have come to an understanding with each other about how to keep the proper number of stitches.

Today, I was working on it after looking on Ravelry, checking out and admiring the other Gatsby sweaters that have already been finished.  I happened to notice that my front/back post double crochets look different from the other sweaters…I looked closer at my own sweater and realized I’ve been doing the fp/bpdc’s wrong the ENTIRE TIME I’VE BEEN MAKING THIS SWEATER!!! Gaaah!  SERIOUSLY?!?!?!  Well, I guess it was just bound to happen since I’ve not yet made a piece of clothing that didn’t have some sort of problem…Maybe I should stick to hats, scarves and mittens…I think they are more my speed…

So what have I been doing wrong this whole time?  Instead of going around the previously made dc, I was going in and out the holes at the top making a stubby version of the raised dc.  Mine don’t seem to flow as nicely from one row to the next as they really should.  I called Darling Hubby into the room and told him of my terrible error.  He’s ok with it.  He’s been waiting long enough for the sweater as it is.  He doesn’t want to wait longer for me to frog the whole thing and start again.  Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of tearing out hours of hard work so I’m thankful he was fine with it.  Really, it doesn”t look bad and I’m sure no one would notice if I hadn’t pointed it out.  I’m just going to continue on with my erroneous fp/bpdc’s and will finish this sweater, hopefully within the next couple weeks.    I’ve been working on it here and there doing a couple rows when I’m sitting on the couch watching tv.  I’ve been remembering to count ever row or every other row to make sure I keep the right number of stitches.  Maybe if it’s cool on Easter he can wear it then…that is, if it doesn’t look like complete crap when I’m done with it…I obviously have a lot of faith in my crocheted clothing creations, huh?  Oh, and to top it all off, when I was measuring the front panel to see how far along I was, I noticed that the front panel is slightly wider than the back panel…I’m just going to have to make it work….sigh…

I’m seriously thinking that my next project is going to be a blanket of some sort…something without gauge, without a predetermined size and without a tricky pattern to follow.  It’s getting too warm for hats, scarves and mittens…I’m going to have to find something else to work on to occupy my hands.