The Book Thief has struck....again

This weekend was a very productive one for me: stashed onto Ravelry all of my non-project wool (not the sock yarn wool and when I say "non-project", I'm referring to odds, ends, and single skeins); taught a dozen or so Girl Scouts and their moms how to knit and left their retreat with them well on their way to having some cat mats to donate to the Eaton County animal shelter; saw "The Book of Eli" with Sylvain (good rental); and started and completed nearly one donor chemo cap ("The off balance beanie") and am half-way done another ("The chemo turban").

Before I start snarking about the knitting, let me tell y'all the latest book drama. This weekend, I had such high hopes to make a large dent on the reading I needed to do for book club, which is "The Book Thief." BUT, the book seems to have disappeared on me. I remember reading it on Thursday....and after that? No idea. I've looked everywhere, which (for the record) now includes a thorough search thru the back seat of my car. I'm at complete and total wits end and am seriously considering purchasing yet a third copy of this book. [Marcus Zuzack, if the sales numbers are looking great this quarter, you've got me to thank, pal!] If I didn't have to lead the discussion for this book, I'd call it quits now. When I left the house to go shop hopping in Howell with Sarah and Jessie today, I gave Sylvain two chores: empty the dishwasher and find my book. Hopefully, he'll have some luck!

Okay, the chemo cap knitting is going okay. I'm a complete retard when it comes to reading patterns all the way thru before starting the pattern. Actually, what I should say is that I don't read the pattern all the way, then get pissed off when I hit a point where something isn't working. Case in point: on "The off balance beanie", I *thought* that there was an issue with the decreasing for the crown and had Sarah read that part over. She looked at the photo and we both agreed that the pattern looked fine there. I double-checked the pattern page on Ravelry and didn't see any complaints, so went with it as written. Once I was finished with the hat, Sarah, Jessie, and I thought that it needed to be a little longer, so I tore the hat out back down to the row before the decreases and inserted another two sets of the 8 row body patterning. While working these extra rows, I noticed the following phrase at the end of the pattern: "Sew up back seam, and Voila!" What a minute, what back seam?!? I knit this hat in the round!?! No wonder the decreasing rows didn't look right to me. Dammit! Now I have to think and flip around the instructions when I'm ready to decrease again.

As for the chemo turban: why in the hell didn't I notice that the directions call for 40-inches of 4x4 ribbing. How frakking miserable does that sound? I'm only on 20-inches and have been working on and off on this hat for almost a week; this hat is taking a little longer than I want, so it better end-up being really cool and worthwhile....

[Note: I'll update this entry with links when I get to a real computer....]