High Society

How have I never seen High Society (1956)?

Philadelphia Story is one of my favorite movies, so when my friend Terri blogged about High Society I immediately threw it in my Netflix queue. I watched it this morning and here's my take:

• I have never seen a movie with either Grace Kelly or Louis Armstrong. I feel better now that i have. Oh, Louis. He's cute.
  
• Grace Kelly is no Katharine Hepburn. I didn't care for Grace's acting. Seemed unnatural.
  
• Bing Crosby just doesn't do it for me like Cary Grant does.
• I LOVED that it was in color.
• The songs weren't too cheesy.
• I WANT the dress that Grace Kelly wears to the Bach Party. (I can't find a pic of it.)
  
• I am now obsessed with the champagne glasses they use throughout the movie. I have been scouring ebay for similar ones.
  

Here's my favorite song. Of course it's Frank.

Wanted: Knitting Mojo

It all started with a hat. I started to make a Bounce back in December from a skein of Malabrigo left over from the ruffle scarf. I got greedy. I came so close to finishing, then ran out of yarn. Not worth buying more yarn for, so I frogged it.

I moved on to a pair of gloves, which I finished (I'll post them sometime) and then realized that one thumb was off by 2 stitches, making on thumb bigger than the other. Not a big deal, but still... how'd I do that?

Then I thought I'd try to make a cowl to match my mittens. I don't have much yarn left, so I figured I might be able to squeak out a cowl. Good idea, poorly executed. It ended up like this:

It was honestly the ugliest thing ever. Not even close to flattering or even utilitarian.

So then.... I thought I could make a Bounce out of the yarn left over from mittens that I haven't shown you and I ran out of yarn again...

Do you see a bit of conservatism going on here?
I'm trying really hard to use up left over yarn and it's so not working.

So this weekend, I gave up. I called my Dad and told him that sweaters were the only thing that I seem not to mess up lately. (Oh, yeah. I finished this one weeks ago. You'll see that whenever I see the sun again.) I told him I needed his measurements STAT! I told him that I was effing up all my knitting and that I was going to start his sweater, so he could either get on board and get me some measurements or wait another year.
It took him less than an hour to email me. Good man.

I grabbed my size 10 needles and swatched a pocket and got gauge:


13 stitches over 4 inches.
I even washed the bugger and while it dried I cast on the body:


I got a little greedy again and didn't re-measure the next morning to see if I still had gauge after washing. I mean... I swatched and got gauge. That should be enough, right?

Well... yesterday I got a little nervous and measured. It grew while it dried. 12 stitches over 4 inches! $^#&%@! Oh well. At least I didn't get too far, right?

So I did the only reasonable thing to do. I grabbed my size 9 needles and started another pocket:


This time I got 14.5 stitches over 4 inches. Hm. Well... maybe it'll bloom again. I washed it. I laid it out to dry and cast on for the body again.


When I got home today I grabbed my tape measure and went for my swatch/pocket. 14 stitches over 4 inches?! What?

I laid the swatches/pockets side by side:


That's a pretty big difference. I grabbed both swatches stuffed them in my purse ready to go see Kim at the yarn store. What to do? Kim would know what to do. At that moment I saw my needle gauge...

No! It couldn't be.

Those have to be size 10's. I grabbed them from my needle case in the size 10 slot. I slid the needle gauge on my "size 10's" and there you have it. Size 10.5's.

I have no words.

The worst is that I have no idea where my size 10's are and now I'm really not sure that I even own size 10's. Even worse, Kim didn't have any size 10's in stock.

I think I'm going to start a baby blanket on size 13's. This couldn't possibly end in disaster. Who messes up a gigantic rectangle?