Victory

Even small victories are victories nonetheless.

Mine came this week through a few technological changes that I've been meaning to make for quite awhile. The most daring of all was updating my laptop to Windows 7. Updating the operating system on a computer is basically like playing with fire--you don't wonder if you're going to get burned, but when.

I've had the software for weeks, and every time I moved it around on my desk to find something else, I debated whether or not I was actually going to go through with it. After all, apart from a few freeze-ups once in awhile, my laptop works great. Why mess with it? But then I kept hearing about some of the new features that sounded cool, and I'd be tempted to try.

Well, this week I did my research, backed up my hard drive, and went for it. I was sure I had doomed myself to a day or two of aggravation in the form of downloading updates and searching for fixes. But no. It couldn't have been easier. Everything works. Stunning.

I also had to spend a day dealing with cable connections and audio settings to get the remaining TVs in our house into the twenty-first century. We've been ditching a couple of the last old, heavy tube TVs around the place. Between old computers, TV sets, and stereo equipment, we had better start saving now for what it's going to cost us at our city-wide recycling day this spring.

The Tomten jacket is coming along. The second sleeve went much faster since I had done the figuring and reknitting on the first. By mid-week, I had picked up the stitches for the hood and gotten one skein knit up before I ended up ripping back to re-do the method of increases.

There are several different modifications that have been done on the hood by other knitters. I liked the idea of bringing it in around the neck, so I knit even for the first three inches and then decreased eight stitches on the next row over just the stitches at the back of the neck. On the next right side row--the outside of the hood-- I began the increases. Initially, I did the increases with a M1L and M1R on either side of the middle stitch every two garter ridges, but the increases stuck out and looked awkward. I took out the knitting back to the decrease row and tried again by knitting into the front and back of each stitch on either side of the middle stitch to make the increases. Much better. It's smooth and should be almost invisible after blocking. I'm not exactly sure how many increase rounds it will take for the hood. I guess I'll know when to quit.