Knitting: I swear, it's a coat!

Well I decided to (metaphorically) get off my hiney and start a new project, even though I am still working on my Dixon Knitters blankets (for the new people, I started a log cabin blanket and a moderne log cabin blanket at the same time... I know, I know). They are mostly stockinette or garter stitch, so they were kind of boring to do, even watching TV, and I spent less time knitting as a result.

Then I started (literally) grinding my teeth over my dental bills, so I knew stress-reduction was needed. Spinning and knitting are the two best stress reducers I know of. Since I'd ordered more spinning fiber for *that* project (the Clasica coat on the cover of the Fall 2009 Interweave knits) on Oct 8th and it still hadn't arrived due to a backorder on the buttons, I had to find another project fast.

I ordered a bunch of Knit Picks Gloss in heavyweight worsted (not fucking cheap, let me tell you), and started the Winter Wonderland coat. And re-started. And ripped back five times. There is something seriously wrong with that chart! The pictures show a lacey leaf shape flanked by lacey diamonds. At the top of those diamonds, the last row of them (at the edge of the repeat, no less) is a left-slanting decrease, then two yarn-overs in a row, followed by a right-slanting decrease. The next row was straight stockinette. Huh?

There had been previous rows with double yarn-overs. That wasn't what was boggling me. The problem is the row above it... how to resolve that last double yarn-over wasn't addressed. I ended up with a huge ladder above the diamond, no matter what. And since that wasn't what the finished coat in the picture looked like, I was at a loss. I tried looking up the erratta on the Interweave site, but they must have been having problems because every page I went to resolved into a 404 error or a database error page. Finally, I gave up. I mean, this was supposed to be stress *reducing* right?

So I switched to a coat I'd started and frogged in another yarn and color, the Blanket Coat from Knitter's Magazine Winter 2006. It is a basic blanket shape, with sleeves added at a strategic point allowing it to be worn as either a duster, or a cardigan with a very large cowl collar. At least this is what the pattern claims.

In any case, I'm now knitting yet another blanket. But in squares of stockinette and reverse stockinette, so it's slightly less boring. I even have pictures:



Okay, I have *one* picture of my progress. But that is two-days-worth of knitting, so it's proceeding quite quickly.