Found

I finished the replacement Owl Mitten, and, truth be told, I like the colors better than the original left mitten.

I'm looking forward to giving these back to Rachel. Oddly, it's rather warm around here right now (warm = 40s in December), so the need for mittens isn't as great as it usually is the week before Christmas.

After I finished the mitten, I was searching for a new project. I decided that it would be a treat to knit something to give to someone randomly.  Well, okay, not randomly, because, really, this is me we're talking about. I wanted to knit something I hadn't planned on knitting to give to someone who wouldn't expect it. It would be something I hadn't planned to give as a Christmas gift, so there would be no pressure to get it finished quickly.  Even so, the first half of the project went quite fast.

Della Mitts knit in Knitpicks Stroll Tonal in the Gypsy colorway

Pleased with myself, I started the second. I was knitting a great gift with leftover sock yarn!  Hooray!  Not surprisingly, I then promptly ran out of yarn.  Boo.

I'll order more and get these finished soon.

On Friday, we celebrated Christmas with Andrew's extended family. While there, Andrew's grandpa asked me if I'd knit him a scarf.  Bien sur.  I love Andrew's grandpa.  When I asked him what color he wanted, he said blue. When I asked him what color blue, he said, "You know, just normal blue." Then he pointed to his Colts baseball cap.  Aha.  Gotcha.  I went to the yarn store yesterday at lunch and bought three skeins of Cascade 128.  After work, I started this:

Rupe scarf knit in Cascade 128 in normal blue* 

We all know I'm a whore for cables, so this is a perfect knit for me.

Cablepalooza

While I was shopping for the yarn, the owner asked me if I was trying to get the scarf done by Christmas. I took a moment to be grateful that I was not buying yarn on December 20 for a gift on December 24.  (Yes, we have another Christmas with Andrew's family even though we had one on Friday.  I cannot explain why we have six different Christmas celebrations every year, but we do. Luckily, we like our families, so it's fine.)  A tiny voice in my head said, "Hey, do you think you could get it done by Christmas Eve?"  I am trying to ignore that voice.  I have a cold and all the tiredness and crankiness that brings with it, so I'm trying to give myself grace and tell myself there is no way I'll have this done by Christmas Eve.

Maybe New Year's.

I hope you are all having a great week leading up to Christmas, and, if you're Jewish, happy Hanukah! I celebrate Christmas and work in a synagogue, so I get to enjoy both holidays.

May your days be merry and bright!

*Okay, it's not really called normal blue, but I left the ball band at home.

Shortcut, With the Emphasis on Cut

I'm making a sweater. I hope to wear it to various holiday functions, which is a clear sign of impending disaster.  

It's the Off-Rib Cardigan by Stefanie Japel. If you're desperate to see it and aren't on Ravelry, click here and look at the goldish cardigan (second row, middle photo).  Pretty, right?

I had trouble getting gauge. I decided just to start and hope for the best.  There's no need to point out how stupid that is.  I know. 

The body was mostly done when I reread the pattern and realized I was knitting with needles size 7 and 9 instead of 5 and 7.

I'll wait a moment for your pain to wane.

The body was going to be fine (maybe). The neck was not.  I put it away and knit something else quietly.  As I lay in bed that night, I figured out my next step.*

I would just unravel the neck and reknit going the opposite way!  A tiny voice in my head said, "Didn't you read that the only stitch that can be unraveled backwards is garter stitch?" I told the tiny voice, "Maybe that knitting expert was wrong."

That's probably it.  Happens all the time.

The next day after work I unraveled the cast on edge.  Of course, at the end of these two hours I found that the neck wouldn't unravel from the top.

So I got out the scissors.

I very long time later, the neck was unattached.  (Yes, it's a tall collar.  We're not talking about 15 minutes of knitting here.)

That ball was all that remained of the collar when I was finished.

I could bore you with the hell that happened after that, but all it would do is highlight my own stupidity and I think that's been demonstrated enough in this post.  Let's just say that the collar and I had a difficult time, but I did eventually succeed.

Until the needle separated from the cable.  As in, the knitting needle fell apart.  While on live stitches.

Again, I'll wait while you recover.

I'm not ashamed of the words I said.  

We're on much surer ground now, the sweater and I.  I'm on the second sleeve and the end is in sight, so I fully expect the yarn to spontaneously combust.  

Does alpaca burn?

 *Let's take a moment to note how much life gets in the way in times like this. I can't call in sick to work because a sweater is jerking me around.  I'm sure the time spent away from the sweater is actually beneficial, but it's difficult to go to work when my brain wants to be Fixing a Problem.

Lost

My favorite person to talk knitting with isn't a knitter.  Rachel has a profound love of knitwear, and she's a joy to knit for.*

As happens, she experienced a mitten tragedy.  Her sorrow was profound...

... and unnecessary.  I'm going to knit her another, and I'm happy to do it.  All that's left is to hope that a person missing her right hand found the mitten and believes it is a gift from the universe.

*I know it should be "with whom to talk knitting" and "a joy for whom to knit", but you have to admit that sounds ridiculous.  Stupid grammar.

Stabbing Things with Family

Well, huh. Apparently I never posted this.  It's a jillion years old.  Since I also didn't upload photos of the current sweater-in-progress I took over the weekend, I might as well let this see the light of day!

On Saturday I went to my cousin's house and we played with wool.  She made a little rabbit, and I made brightly colored baubles to sit in a piece of glass we have on a bookcase.

Needle felting involves laying pieces of wool over other materials and stabbing them repeatedly with little barbed needles.  I've done it once before.

Five years ago, I had absolutely no idea this impulse to make stuff was going to take hold of me.  I'm often surprised by my life.

Grieving

Before anyone thinks something bad has happened, let me assure you it has not--at least not to me.

I work in a synagogue, which means I watch Bar and Bat Mitzvah students arrive in the afternoon to meet the Cantor to practice their Hebrew, babies carried through on their way to baby namings, dressed up couples arriving for pre-wedding photos.

And there are funerals.

There are doors closer to the sanctuary than the one that goes past my office, but people who have been members for a long time often come to the office door out of habit or to speak to the Rabbis before the service. I sit at my desk and watch the family slog past my office looking shocked, sad, stressed, and broken.

My father died when I was 21. I have no idea what the minister said during the funeral.  (A friend told me later that was a very good thing. Apparently his theology would have made me violent.) I kept looking at my father in the casket, and I was sure I could see him breathing even though I knew he was not.*

On the way to the cemetery from the funeral home, we drove a road I have driven hundreds or thousands of times.  It was late October, and one of the fields we passed was being harvested.

The farmer stopped the tractor, took off his hat, placed it over his chest, and sat immobile until the entire funeral procession passed.  I can still see him, and I bow to the ground to him.

When someone you love dies, the most gut-wrenching part is that the world keeps going. People go to work, go for coffee, help their kids with their homework, pick up their dry cleaning. They keep living their life as if the whole world hasn't shifted with the loss of the human being you loved. Your world is changed, but their world has not.

On days when there's a funeral at the synagogue, I dress up and wear black. If the family glides past my office, I stop typing and sit quietly. It's not enough, and it probably isn't noticed by anyone, but I remember the farmer who was trying to get the harvest in before it frosted, and I remember how he stopped and covered his heart to show respect for the funeral procession of someone he may or may not have known.

For that moment, at least, the world did stop. I knew that nothing was ever going to be the same, and I knew that this stranger understood it, too.

Today I am wearing black.

*I want to be cremated.  Seriously, write it down.  Give away everything you can--organs, eyes, whatever--and then burn the rest. Don't pump me full of chemicals, put me into a cushy box inside a concrete vault and put me in the ground.  Don't.  Thanks.

Fantasy Letter

Dear Work,

This letter is to inform you that I will only be working two more days this month, the days I handle payroll.

Having carefully considered this issue, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot be expected to work this month. There are Things To Do. I need to wrap presents, cook, and, most importantly, sit on my couch and knit. I'm working on a sweater, you see, and it is much more engrossing than the current data cleanup project I've been slogging through at the office.

I know, I know. I preach "garbage in, garbage out" until people want to throttle me.  I understand that data cleanup is important. But is it really so important that it can't wait until January?  That's what I thought.

In case of emergency, I may be reached at home.  By "emergency," I mean "building is burning down and there are puppies and kitties inside."  All other items can wait until January.

Speaking of January, I will not be working the two weeks surrounding my birthday.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and I know we will enter February with renewed appreciation for one another.  Have a happy holiday season.

Love,
Bonnie

Rethinking My Tools

My cousin and his wife had twins in August. I gave them baby hats at their shower, and when they told my mom that the twins had outgrown them, I sent them earflap hats.  Then they e-mailed and asked if I'd be able to knit hats to go with vests they had purchased. I picked up the vests at Thanksgiving and went on a yarn search.

Here is Thing 1's hat and vest. This hat had to meet two criteria: It had to be machine washable, and it had to go with the vest. This one was knit out of a bulky weight acrylic yarn.

Ann Budd's Basic Hat Pattern knit in Loops & Threads Charisma in Sunny Day colorway

Matching Thing 2's vest was a bit more difficult.  It's not exactly a hot pink. It's some sort of pink/raspberry hybrid. The best yarn in terms of color was a cotton worsted weight.

Ann Budd's Basic Hat Pattern knit in Bernat Cotton Tots in Very Berry colorway

The pattern came from Ann Budd's The Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.  This book is genius.  It's full of charts.  You figure out how many stitches per inch your yarn gives you (bulky was 3 and worsted was 5 for me), what size you want the hat to be (0-6 month), and follow the chart where those two numbers intersect.  Really, really smart and something I think I'll use a lot.

The only problem that I had was that Thing 2's yarn required me to cast on 82 stitches.  I don't own small circulars in many sizes, so I use double-pointed needles for most small projects.

cotton yarn + metal needles = slippery

The only way I found I could successfully knit this was by putting stoppers on every single end of every needle and rotating them around as I knit.  It really slowed me down and was inconvenient, but it was the only way to keep the stitches from freeing themselves with every hand movement.

I may need to be rethinking my Christmas list. There has to be a better way.

Hang Them With Care

Note to self: It's wise to finish Christmas gift knitting early for two reasons. 1) I have lots less time to knit during November and December than normal, what with wrapping and card writing and attending holiday parties with people I don't like.  2) Inevitably, I end up doing projects I didn't have on my list. 

In that spirit, I just finished Christmas stockings for two of my nephews.  My sister had knit stockings for her and her husband shortly after they were married, and she asked me to knit one for her firstborn when he came around.  I did, but I was new to knitting and didn't do a very good job.  (Contrast color?  We don't need no stinking contrast color!) Her second was born in May, and I decided I couldn't face knitting him a subpar one to match his brother's nor allowing the first one to hang by the new one.

So I knit two.

My sister is confident that she's not having a third child.

I'm a third child.  My parents thought they were done after sister #2, too.  I'M JUST SAYING.

I told her that if she does have a third, I'm going to reknit all three.  It's very clear that these two are a set. Doing a third with different colors wouldn't fit.

When we were kids, there were three elves that sat under our Christmas tree.  (Well, four.  Elmo was a light-up elf.   We're apparently really into elves.  They do all the real work of Christmas anyway.)  One elf wore red and white stripes, one wore green and white.  They had the same freaky oversized plastic face and splindly body. 

Do you know what my elf looked like?  He was green and stuffed, half the size of the other two, and looked a bit like a troll/elf lovechild who would be comfortable riding a (very small) Harley.  Every year, we put the two elves that matched under the tree and then we put the third, weird troll-like elf under there.  It was always clear to me that they had bought the first two together and then tried to figure out what to do when I came along later.

I'll knit them again if I need to.  Don't worry, Hypothetical Child Three: I've got your back.

Button Necklace

I love the Internet. At the end of September, Wooly Wormhead posted about a necklace she made of buttons.  She had gotten the idea from Craftwerk.  I loved it.  This week, I made my own.

Fifty buttons in shades of gray, purchased off eBay for around $5 with shipping. A barrel clasp and some black silk thread from Michaels. That was it. It was easy and I love the result.

I would echo Wooly Wormhead's advice not to add too many metal buttons.  All of mine are plastic, and the resulting necklace is quite light. I think adding even a few metal buttons would really change the weight. This necklace is delightfully chunky-looking without being chunky-feeling.

Favorite Things

For our last beginning digital photography class, we were supposed to send any picture we wanted.  Flowers are some of my very favorite things to photograph, so I took one of my begonia bloom.

I never liked begonias.  They were old-fashioned flowers in my mind--prissy and belonging in a carefully planned flower bed.  I prefered the exuberance of the daisy or the pleasant memories I associated with moss rose, which we used to plant in our front flower bed when I was growing up.

When I saw this flower, however, I was smitten by it.  It was supposed to be for my mom for Mother's Day, but I convinced myself that she'd really prefer a hanging basket, so I kept it for myself.*  It's looked good on the porch all summer, and I've brought it inside to see if I can overwinter it. 

In knitting news, I'm ready to start my second ball of lace on the wrap.  I only have 3, and I'm a little nervous that it won't be long enough.  I'm trying to ignore that feeling and keep knitting.  If I need more, surely I can find it, right? 

Let's not think too hard about this and instead enjoy the pretty cables.  I hope you're all having a delightful Wednesday!

*I know I should be ashamed of myself, but I'm not.

Red

I've been taking a photography class called Beginning Digital Photography.  We meet for a couple hours once a week for four weeks.  My last class is Thursday.

For the second week, the assignment was to take a photo of something red.

Alpaca with a Twist's Mojito in Hugs and Kisses colorway

This yarn really is this pretty in person. I know what I want this yarn to become, but I haven't managed to get gauge yet.  The swatch is in time out while I try to figure out how to address that issue.*  

In the meantime, the wrap and I have been getting on swimmingly once our last argument was settled. 

*Just in case someone wants to tell me to switch needle sizes, let me tell you that I get stitch gauge and not row gauge.  Tricky.

Dear Malibrigo Lace: Bite me.

I'm not superstitious.  Really, I'm not.  But this yarn is trying my patience and making me question what I thought I knew to be true about the properties of wool.

I tried and tried and tried and tried and tried to make this yarn into a stole.  I blamed the needle.  I blamed the yarn. I blamed the pattern.  I blamed myself. 

A friend helped me find a different pattern.  Beautiful, reversible, and cabled.  Sound familiar?  It looked similar to the Jeanie, but there were no #$&%(_ knitting through the back loop and no *(#_%^ dropped stitches.  This would be better.

Before I go any further, let me just say: I'm a good knitter.

It is also true that I don't always read the pattern as carefully as I should.  Several rows into this new stole, I realized I hadn't been knitting the first four and last four stitches of the row correctly.  No problem.   I would spread it out on the conference room table at lunch, tackle it with a cool head, steely determination, and a crochet hook.

I guess I'll cast on again tonight.

Sigh.

Chicken Little

Here's a Christmas gift I made that is safe to show since the recipient doesn't read my blog:

Spring Chicken knit in odds and ends yarn

My cousin raises chickens and has some chicken decor in her home, so I thought this would be a nice Christmas gift.  Everyone needs a stuffed knit bird, right?

Can you say no to this face?

I thought not.

Vancouver Fog

One of my closest friends is anemic.  Actually, saying she's anemic is sort of like saying the Grand Canyon is a big hole.  As such, she's cold cold cold.  As a knitter, I find that offensive.

I gave her a pair of knucks I had lying around, and then set about to knit her something heavier.  

Vancouver Fog knit in Vanna's Choice in Sapphire and Fern

I wanted these to wear like iron (no pun intended), and I wanted her to be able to throw them in the washer and dryer without worry.  I had most of a ball of pretty blue acrylic, so I started with that.

When I neared the end of the second mitt, I saw that there was no way I was going to have enough blue.  No problem.  I popped over to Michaels.... problem.  They don't carry that color anymore.  I ripped out part of the first mitt, knit it in green with a blue stripe, and then knit the second one to match.  That way, I had enough blue to finish the thumbs.  I've decided to pretend that I was intending to make it sporty.  

Let me know if you feel cold.  If I were a superhero, making knitwear would be my superpower.

I Feel Like Someone's Watching Me

I've found the drug called Pinterest, and it is mighty.  On it, I found a monster wreath. 

And it had instructions.

The instructions called for buying furry fabric, but I couldn't find it at Giant Soulsucking Store, so I went with one of those giant fuzzy pillows you buy to put in a kid's room.*

I carefully ripped part of a seam out, thanking my parents again for putting together a sewing kit for me to take to college.  I pulled out all the stuffing, imminently relieved that it wasn't stuffed with used hypodermics and the tears of children.

Just really icky stuffing.

I turned the pillow inside out, cut small slits and put ping pong balls through the slits.  Then I hot glued the heck out of the openings with a borrowed hot glue gun, burning my finger three times without too much pain.  The fourth hurt like a bitch.

That done, I took the dog on a walk so I wouldn't be tempted to touch it.  Patience has never been my strong suit. 

I came back, turned the pillow right side out, restuffed, and sewed up the hole in the seam.  Out came the Sharpie.

I'm giving it to a friend for Christmas, and she will squeal with glee.

*By kid, I mean me, obviously.

When I Rule the World...

So, yesterday the difference between Ps and Js in the Myers Briggs world was strongly reinforced in my brain.  I took a short version of the Myers Briggs test to get my type.

Yes, I already knew what my type was.  It's like rewatching a good movie.  I do the same thing with the belief-o-matic.  It never fails to amuse me, so I've taken it several times.*

I waver between INFJ and INTJ depending on the day and what's going on in my life.  The feeling/thinking letter has always been quite close.

I'm always introverted, and I'm always judging.  Always.

The quiz I took yesterday was interesting in that the results showed "the strength of your preferences" for each type.  For example, I tested as a T, but only with a 1% preference.  I was N with a 38% preference.

My J-ness was much more pronounced, with a 78% preference.

And my introversion?  Everyone knows I'm strongly introverted.  I've talked about it, and anyone who has any awareness at all can see it if they spend any length of time with me.  I'm okay with it, knowing that I have my limits as to how much time I can spend around lots of people before I feel the need to crawl under the table and take a nap.  My I-ness preference was 100%.

I'll buy that.

A friend told me that she knew of a workplace that had employees put their type on their desk.  Other coworkers could see it and interact accordingly.  I recognize most people will think that's weird.  I think it's brilliant.

The INTJ type is called the Mastermind.

You've been warned.

*Today my top four were Mahayana Buddhism, Theravada Buddhism, Neo-Pagan, and UU.  This is my not surprised face.  Feel free to ignore this if it freaks you out.

Subtext

Earlier today I was talking to a colleague.  The conversation went a little something like this:

Him: Can you do X for me?  I can't get to it before I leave town, and I'm not sure I'll have time Monday.  (I don't want to do this.  It's boring and has numbers.  Plus there's an old Sting song stuck in my head.)

Me:  Yes.  (If you could give this task 10 minutes of focused attention, it would be done.) Wait, these dates don't make sense.

Him: Oh.  That doesn't make sense.


Insert significant pause in which he clearly doesn't want to do anything about this and hopes I will tell him not to worry about it.  I don't.


Him: Um, I guess that row didn't get deleted.  (Please let me go now. Lemme go. Lemme go. Lemme go.)


Me: Okay, but this date doesn't make sense either.  What dates have you had class this year?  (For the love of spreadsheets, didn't anyone look at this?  Ever?  Even a little bit? Was it typed by monkeys?)

Him: I'd have to look at a calendar.

I pointedly turn and stare at the wall calendar directly behind my head.  Another pause.


Him: Oh.  We had class on A, B, C, D, and E.  No, not D.  E and F.  Yeah.  E and F.  (I can't be expected to remember this information.  It's been six weeks--no, five weeks.  Why won't she let me leave?  LOOK!  There's something shiny!)


Me: Okay.  Then why does this paper say G?  Is the kid confused? Did he actually work six days? (I want to punch you in the nose and then make you track all these kids down and get proper timesheets. Why can't you see that this matters?)

Him:  Maybe we did have class on G.  Maybe we didn't have it on F.

Me: You just told me you had it on F.

Him: Well, I'm not sure!  I've got a hundred other things on my mind right now!

He left my office at that point, which was really the best outcome for us both. I had a dayflash of stapling his khakis to my guest chair and forcing him to focus with me for 2 minutes. After he left, I found that two kids had clearly said they'd worked 6 days, which wasn't possible if he was right about there being 5 sessions.  I actually started an e-mail to him, and then stopped.

The light bulb came on.

He's a P.  He's the most P person I've ever, ever met.  In the Myers-Briggs world, one of the four personality types differentiates between P (perceiving) and J (judging).  I am a big, fat J.  I'm the most J person you know who doesn't actively take pills for her J-ness... though I probably could.

A P wants to look at all the options, talk about them, and maybe never do anything about it.  A J wants to looks at the options, make a bulleted list of how to move forward, and go straight on that path.  Ps are big picture people.  Js are detail people.  You might want a P to brainstorm different product ideas for you, but you want the J to build the thing and figure out how it's going to get to the marketplace.

Both are necessary.

I have trouble dealing with my P colleague because I can't pin him down and get him to give me the details I need to complete my task.  He has trouble dealing with my J-ness because he doesn't see the importance of all these trifling details.

He's saying, "IT DOESN'T MATTER.  Just move on and get this done."

I'm saying, "I CAN'T do this until you give me these specific pieces of information."

Neither one of us can understand why the other person feels that way.

Well, I understand.  I feel that way because I am right and the way I see the world is the only sensible one, damn it.


When I'm really honest with myself and get my ego tamped down a bit, I can understand how my need for details that others see as unimportant can keep me from getting things done and, quite possibly, drive people crazy.  Sometimes, I suppose, the details are not necessary.  I don't really get it, but I can rationally see how it might be possible if one's brain were wired differently.

It feels better to have a name for our specific crazy.

That's a trait of Js, too.

The Trouble With Knitting

I knit a lot of gifts.  People tend to not want to know what they're going to receive as a gift (although I personally have never understood the allure of the surprise), so...

Look at adorable pictures of my pets instead!

Things are happening around here, but they're all secret.  Sorry about that.  Hope things are going well for all of you.

A Race Against Frost

Sunday, after attending the ancient ritual used to punish females known as Baby Shower* for one of my cousins, I played in my yard. This is the first year I've planted ornamental sweet potato vine, and it, well...

apparently is not bothered at all by hot weather and little water. It took over my front bed. I cut it back once this summer, filling a trash bag with clippings, but you certainly couldn't tell it now. I started to pull it up on the right side of the picture, and this is what I found:

I put the potatoes into vermiculite, and I'll replant them somewhere next year and see if they grow. I love the vibrancy of this vine, but I'm not sure I want to subject any perennials to its exuberance. Maybe I'll stick them in the yard and watch what happens!

I dug up A LOT of irises, and I've thrown them under some trees in the backyard. I feel like I should give them some hope of survival, so I went to buy some bags of dirt after work yesterday.

There was a perennial sale. I regret nothing. I bought an azalea for $1.44. Amending the soil so it will survive in my pH 7.8 will cost more than that, but I couldn't help myself. I bought two double vincas for around the birdbath  I figure if it tries to take over the yard I'll mow it down. I bought two white salvias and a "Pink Fountain Gaura" to go around the mailbox.

For shade under a tree, I bought a hosta and a mystery plant:

Any guesses? I've e-mailed the Master Gardener helpline to see if they know what it is. It's in a hosta pot, but it doesn't look anything like a hosta to me. I also bought 120 lb. of dirt. I paid under $27 for everything--hence the regretting nothing.

We're in a warm snap around here, so I hope I can get these all into the ground this week. I know that it's very late to be planting perennials, but gardeners are famously optimistic about this sort of thing.  

I love this time of year.

*I get the importance of it.  I think new parents and people getting married should be given gifts and support. I just don't understand a) why we have to play games involving melted candy in diapers, and b) why the males don't have to attend. When I rule the world, things will be different.

O Henry, My Henry

I've finished an epic scarf.  It has 452 stitches in a row (it's knit lengthwise), and it takes between 15 and 20 minutes to complete one row.

It's made of gorgeous ivory laceweight cashmere that I bought at a LYS in Louisville that was going out of business.  The recipient picked out the yarn and the pattern.  The pattern itself uses slipped stitches to make a beautiful herringbone.  The scarf is stunning and soft as, well, cashmere.

Henry knit in Jade Sapphire Mongolian Cashmere 2-ply in Ivory

Typically, I try very hard not to pay attention to how long projects take to knit.  Knitting is slow.  If I wanted fast, I'd do something else.  This time, though, I made the mistake of noting how long it took to knit a row when I realized I was only getting two rows completed at lunch.  I should have stopped right there, but I didn't.

I did the math.


174 rows total

15-20 minutes/row
2 hours plus some Internet searches for incredibly fiddly tubular bind off

3165 minutes

That, ladies and gentlemen, is 52.75 hours.  In reality, it probably took more because I had several rows in which my brain stopped working and I then had to carefully unknit one stitch at a time until I found the error.  This happened more often than I'm willing to admit, even though the pattern specifically warns the knitter to check regularly to make sure the herringbone was lining up properly.

It was worth the time. It's a beautiful pattern knit in beautiful yarn, and it's a gift that celebrates my oldest friendship. Hooray for old friends, knitty.com, and goats!