So, before Christmas I drug Mom into a yarn shop – and ‘lo, she didn’t fall asleep in one of their comfy chairs while I shopped; she actually found a pattern that she really liked. The pattern was from the Plymouth Yarn Company and is for a Vest Kimono.

I was so proud!

So I promptly bought the pattern and we shopped the rest of the day for nice yarn I could actually afford (because I’m po’). Luckily we found a sale at Joanne’s for buy 1 get 1 half off – we originally thought it said buy 1 get 1 free – which had me positively drooling, but we reread the sign and pouted about it.  Of course we still had to argue at the register because the sale price didn’t come up, I volunteered to go check it again – if I’m wrong, I’m wrong – but the manager just ok’d it and we went on our way. The yarn is Country by Caron – it’s a 25% Merino Wool/75% Acrylic Blend. I’m not wild about acrylic, but it does have the Merino in it. I’m hoping the acrylic base will make it more abuse tolerant (I’m mean to my clothes and assume everyone else is too). The main color is #0014, Deep Purple and the accent is a white #0007, called Naturally.

It’s a fairly simple pattern – or so it seems – the lady at Knit Wits said not to bind off the individual pieces, just put them on a holder, and when I’m ready she’ll show me how to do a 3 needle bind off. Yay! (And yes I feel guilty for not buying my yarn from her – but in my defense I did buy the pattern and a ball of yarn for another project there – I just can’t buy multiple skeins of yarn without a sale price!).

Anyway – I quickly got started and was making decent progress on the back using my funky plastic knitting needles from the 70’s (that I got at the Salvation Army for $0.60!) when I made a mistake…

I set my knitting down and left the room.

And my 90 pound Labrador used my project box as a stepping stool to get up on the couch (like he really needed the boost).

And shattered my funky knitting needle (of course it wasn’t the empty one, it was the one holding all the dang stitches).

Then, to top it all off – I didn’t have another pair of needles in that size.

I’ve been so irritated about it that I’ve been torturing myself with the Pasa Doble Shaw this whole time (see my previous post). It’s been sitting there,  just like this, for almost 3 weeks!

But I have finally left my aggravation behind me, bought new needles and am willing to try again during ‘tv time’ tonight.