Tink ... Tink ... Tink ...

I love the brioche stitch. I do, truly. It makes the loveliest plushy sort-of ribbed fabric. And it's easy.

But OHMYGOD is it a pain in the posterior when you make a mistake. You *cannot* frog it - the YOs, the slipped stitches and the K2togs create an unholy mess if you try to frog back a couple of rows to correct an error; nor do I have the brainpower or expertise to drop stitches back down to an error and go back up. So it's either rip out to the garter border (which happened twice before I got on a roll) or TINK, TINK, TINK .... (for the non-knitter, that's unknitting back - one stitch at a time until you reach the mistake - and, yes, it's BORING).

This is a nice piece though - a co-worker just got married and it is the start of an afghan for her. I got tired of buying disposables for wedding presents and most people don't get silver or china anymore, so I've just instituted a policy of knitting something for them.

A funny note, when I was working on an afghan 2 years ago for another couple, someone commented that I was smart to "save money" by making my present. I said "Really?" and asked them if they thought $50 in wool and 100+ hours of my time was "saving money". It really would be so much easier just to go buy them the damned electric can opener, you know?

This one will use up 8-9 200 yard+ skeins of a deep chocolate brown merino wool before I'm done. Not cheap and 8+ feet of afghan isn't exactly something you can whip out in an hour or two. Non-knitters who think a> that yarn is cheap and b> that knitting an afghan is an evening or two's work amaze me. Good heavens, even Wal-mart acrylic isn't inexpensive (it is cheap, but the other sort, you know).

OK, back to TINKing - I think I have about another 3/4s of a row to knit back before I reach the root of the problem, then I can turn around and reknit the 5 or so rows I undid.

Other WIPs .... a teal silk oh-so-shimmery feather and fan scarf; a pair of cotton and wool socks for Mother; a pair of felted clogs for Tobye; a toddler blanket for former manager's middle child. I need to frog the partially completed dog sweater that a> I never could understand the pattern and b> I lost the pattern to. I have wool for 3 other sets of clogs, 4 more pair of socks and some other little lovelies, but not enough weeks left in the year.

The problem is, of course, that Ms. Packratty could quite easily fill all of the hours of the day doing things she is interested in - without ever going near a paying job. In my 20s and 30s, I lived to work - now that I'm almost 52, I would, finances permitting, quite happily stay at home, do volunteer stuff, putter around, knit, read, walk the dog, etc. Not that work isn't interesting - just that left to my own devices, I can amuse myself quite well without the necessity of dealing with some of the morons one encounters either in the workplace or on one's commute to and from said workplace.

Now if Ms. Packratty could just find someone who wished to pay her adequately for reading, knitting etc. ... The blessing at this job being that I slid knitting between calls right in under the manager's radar simply taking it for granted that no sane boss would have a problem with a quiet, productive activity. The new manager doesn't seem to see it as an issue either. I recall working as a contractor for the tech support department of Large Soft Drink Corporation where the manager was so anti-knitting that I could not even knit at my desk during my dinner break. Of couse, the co-workers watching movies, reading, wandering around the office visiting one another and just plain screwing around were OK. Funny, that. Always liked what manager at one job said to corporate suit. "Of course knitting isn't an issue. They're in their seats, quiet and available to take calls." I'd managed to subvert 2 other women and one guy (who had learned to knit as a child) into joining me in playing with sticks and string at work.