Sometimes you win...

 (Warning: picture-heavy post)

Working my way backwards in the Win Column:

Graduation: Class of 2010. The Dork will be heading to San Francisco State next year. Now if he'll just get a job to help pay for it!

Prom:Aren't they cute? They decided to go with a bit of steampunk aesthetic in their outfits, so I made his vest. I also found the perfect buttons in my button box with which to make cufflinks! So super easy using this tutorial.

For the win, this was the amount of thread left on my bobbin when I finished the vest, except for a bit of hand-sewing. 

Both my guys are knitting up a storm! I find it very amusing that The Hubby has been spending more time at Purlescence Yarns than I have! (Courtesy of his work schedule for the last few months.) He is working on a vest out of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Twisted in Muddy Autumn Rainbow, and The Dork is working on a scarf for himself in Colourscape Chunky.

At Stitches West (waaaay back when, after I last posted), I also won because The Hubby bought me some Glow sock yarn from WabiSabi in a gorgeous purple (of course). He bought more yarn at Stitches than I did - he definitely won! I bought fiber instead...

Oh, you came to see what I was up to knit-wise?

 Two retirement scarves are in the works: on the left is an Irish Hiking Scarf in Cascade Sierra; on the right is a Strangling Vine scarf in Naturally Caron Spa. Trying to get the lavender one done by Tuesday so it can be blocked on Wednesday and presented to the retiree on Friday, her last official day of work! The other one is going to be shipped up to Washington for a teacher who retired last year.

My Susie Hoodie is going along, the 2nd purple 3x1 rib sock is started, I saw the Sally Rand pattern from the Twist Collective and had to start that right away too (Pictures on that later when I figure out which bag I threw it into when cleaning.)

Then I realized that I really needed to get to a repair that has been sitting for the last couple months. My boss' daughter-in-law's grandmother had made her a crocheted afghan when she was little, and there were a couple of damaged rows; could I fix it? Sure!

The separated row goes almost all the way across. Upon further close inspection, it turned out to involve parts of 3 rows. So I ripped out the damaged yarn and single-crocheted the rows. Luckily, the blanket seemed to have been made in Red Heart acrylic, and I found a great match in the last yarn swap.

Before I crocheted the last row, I put in a sock yarn life line; it was a smooth contrasting yarn threaded through the bottom loops of the row above the last row I removed. Unfortunately in crochet, to remove a row that is above the damaged area, you have to carefully remove it loop by loop, not unzipping it as you could normally would if you were ripping from the top down.

Make your stitch as normal.

BUT, before making the next stitch, remove the hook from the final loop. Insert a slightly smaller hook from left to right through the bottom 2 loops of the stitch in the row above (that is on your lifeline). Grab the final loop of the stitch you just made and pull it through, making sure it's not twisted.

Remove the smaller hook, use the regular hook and make the next stitch, repeating the steps above until you're finished. Weave in any ends of old and new yarn that need to disappear, and take a bow! 

Here is the completed afghan. You can see the new yarn under the name, but it's actually a very good match, considering the original blanket is almost 30 years old!

So, how have you all been doing?