The Original Grumpbump

My sweet cat, Macy, is sleeping on the floor in front of me, on her back with her legs in the air.   Macy's been with us for almost a year now, and she has started exhibiting a need to be our line of sight.  Macy always relaxes or sleeps directly in front of the couch and tv if we are in the room with us.  For regular longer sleeping or napping, she's still much more comfortable and safe in her cat condo.  In fact, as I type this, she just climbed on the couch next to me and made herself comfortable on my knitting.

I am in the middle of a big project at work and it has completely screwed up my routine.  I've been going into work earlier and leaving late.  I feel very stressed all the time. I basically get a few hours each night to try to relax.  The only thing that helps is knitting.  And I started an afghan project a few weeks ago but I messed up the pattern two separate times and had to frog the entire project both times.  Knitting was not helping me out at all.

However,…

I really want to knit an afghan I found on Bernat's website.  I can't link it directly because you have to be a member to view it, but it's called Ripple Stitch Afghan.  While I bought yarn to start the project, it is clear to me now that it will not be enough.  And, while I will not have enough yarn of the same dye lot, this is not enough to discourage me from this project.

The pattern seems simple enough.  I've learned my lesson from other projects that I will read through the entire project and make sure I understand the stitches.  This easy pattern passed the test.  My contrast color (orange) started the project as the border, and then I had to increase the number of stitches by 30.  At this point, I started with my first color (pink) in the ripple pattern.  The pattern involves increasing and decreasing in the row, but I thought I knew what I was doing.  Wrong.  I managed eight rows of the pattern before I realized I was leaving out several stitches at the end of t…