Thursdays are for candlelight...

...Especially when one has no power.

I woke up nice and late—around 11:30—on Thanksgiving (this is one of the benefits of buying your dinner already made... reheating doesn't start at zero-dark thirty like cooking does).

And 15 minutes later the power went out.

The power stayed out until 10 something that night. My stove is gas, but the starters are all electric. I don't mind manually lighting the burners, but the oven?? In a dark kitchen?!? No way. So, I read and knit until it was too dark, then I napped. We held out hope all day. I programmed the freakin' electric company into the phone so I could check the automated message every hour or so. Finally, around 7-ish we decided to venture forth to hunt down an open restaurant.

I never thought I would say "Thank God for Bennigans!" (But since the only other place open in our lil' suburban neck of the woods was Hooters, thank God, indeed!)

While I am being thankful for the not-too-bad-but-still-pretty-cheesy chain restaurant dinner, I would like to give equal time to a few other equally wonderful things.

• I am thankful that I didn't have a house-full of relatives.


• I am thankful that I am a candle hoarder.


• I am thankful that telephones work even when the power is out. (Hi, Mom!)

We ended up having a lovely dinner Friday evening.

************

I did manage to get a bit of knitting done over the last few days.

A 60" scarf for a friend, using Crystal Palace Fizz and Squiggle-one skein each.

AND (drumroll please), I finished up "Boogie."


Click for a close up

Stats:
Pattern: Boogie, Amy King (available at www.knitty.com, Spring '04 issue)
Yarn: GGH Aspen in Bronze (I made the XL size and used 6.5 skeins I think)
Needles: US#9 addi natura circs
Mods:I modified the beejezus out of Boogie.

First, don't hate me because I'm stupid. But, I didn't realize that Boogie wasn't a V-neck until after I finished the back. I know, I know. There is even a schematic. But the picture makes it look like a V-neck. Doesn't it? Help me out here... Bueller? Bueller?

Anyway, since I am compulsively attached to V-necks, step one was to start neck shaping on the same row that the split happens. I decreased on each RS until I had the correct number of shoulder stitches. (I used SSKs and K2Togs on the right and left sides of the neck split, respectively.)

Then, as I mentioned in my last post, I finished up the knitting, seamed the shoulders and tried it on... and the shoulders were a bit too linebacker-ish. This is possibly due to pulling the neck apart? Anyway. I ripped back to the last armscye shaping and bound off an extra 4 stitches on each side (as 2, 1, 1 stitches). I finished the neck and armscyes with single crochet, as written.

I am still not totally in love with the shoulder/armscyce combo, but I don't have any idea how to fix them, so I am living with them. She's blocking now, so my fingers are crossed that that helps a bit. I have also signed up for a finishing class at my favorite LYS. My seaming is good, but that crochet edge took several tries to get even presentable.