I finished this while I was visiting my parents for Christmas. I'm really happy with how it turned out. I didn't bind off for the neck until two inches after the armhole and I changed the sleeves because looking at the photos on Ravelry it seemed like the sweater was sort of pulling off the shoulders on some people. I think I ended up with the shoulder a stitch or two wider when I bound off at the top and I used the article from Interweave Knits winter 07 to calculate the perfect cap. I worked both sleeves up to the cap and then made both caps at once so I wouldn't have to worry about trying to remember what I did for the first one when I got to the second one.

I finished this sweater before Christmas but I only just got around to taking proper photos. I'm really pleased with how this came out. I was a bit worried about how the yarn was turning out when I was plying and finishing it but now that it's knitted and he's wearing it I think it looks really good. I changed the pattern to make it a bit smaller and I continued the cable down the back. Also I changed the sleeves because I didn't want to have to sew in sleeves that were shaped with a bo2 curve so I made the cap a bit smoother.

Well I've finally finished the body of this sweater. I knit the whole thing in the round even after I divided/cast off for the neck. I really like knitting this way when I have to modify the pattern because I can modify all the pieces at once without having to try to remember what I changed later. However when you're working 4 different shoulders with 4 different incoming strands of yarn it does have a tendency to turn into a giant tangled mess. I decided to go ahead and to the pick up and knitting for the neck band. Then I'll only have one sleeve to work on. I doubt this will be done before the end of the year but possibly I'll take it home to work on over Christmas.

I have been intending for a while now to write a scathing rant about how crap the service industry is and how much of a hassle it is to deal with a burglary but the combination of being warn down by various employees and contractors from the council and the insurance company, my having been ill all day, and the Christmas music I've been listening to all afternoon has somewhat lessened my fervor. The council has been particularly useless as they took ages to schedule an appointment to fix the door frame and then at the last minute after having made and rescheduled several appointments to perform a range of duties finally showed up only to asses the damage, not to actually fix anything. After making a further appointment to fix the frame (after having tried to talk us out of fixing it at all) they then tried to reschedule until after Christmas and when we insisted that the work needed to be done before we went away for a week (more than a month after the original burglary) they instead came around and put wood filler over the splintered wood and then sanded it in hopes that we would be pacified. This 'fix' had the bonus side effect of leaving a rather strong and unpleasant smell in the apartment presumably from some sort of fast acting drying agent in the filler. The locksmith will be coming around tomorrow to have an attempt at strengthening the locks and frame with several external devices but I can't say that I'm particularly encouraged or really all that hopeful.

When we have tried to suggest to the council that we should have a new door installed ourselves they are quite happy to point out that the door and frame are their responsibility but when it comes to actually being responsible they are somewhat lacking in interest. Of course during this entire episode they have been invoicing us for major works to be done on our building despite the scaffolding being nowhere in site (scaffolding being the chief signal that the work is beginning and that they are allowed to bill us) but I suppose that is the topic of an entirely different rant.

The insurance company, doing their best to avoid being outdone, has been mailing our claims forms to the wrong address. In a fit of efficiency they have created a database to hold our mailing address for these types of occasions which differs from the billing database which has our correct address. They also have a particularly spectacular system of printing emails and then re-scanning them into the database adding a one week processing time to any information such as proof of purchase that they receive over email. They are also quite fond of calling us on our home number while we are at work so that no progress can be made on our claim until they finally reach us at home on Saturday. Hopefully I'll have the voucher for a new laptop before the weekend so I can get one before we start traveling for Christmas but I'm not really holding my breath.

Now that I've gotten over the initial shock of having someone else break into my house I would definitely say that all of the inconvenience and frustration of dealing with incompetent workers and ridiculously inefficient systems and processes has turned out to be much worse than just the initial loss of property. I have no idea how people with less flexible jobs cope with these situations. On several occasions Kim has had to come rushing home from work in the afternoon to meet a workman or inspector or reschedule weekdays he'd planned to work from home because of a broken appointment.

12 out of 14 inches done on the body. so close, and yet, so far.

Here is my finished hat!

Its not quite as slouchy as I'd hoped but I'm happy with how it came out and my ears are much warmer now. I increased the width of the stripes between the ribbed band and the body of the hat due to the encouragement of a friend during a marathon knitting session and then decreased their size again as I was finishing the decreasing for the top of the hat.

I tried to switch to a 'jogless' striping method about half way through the body of the hat (slip the 1st stitch of the second round of each color) but I'm not particularly impressed as the jogs are still rather visible.

Well actually the stripes don't look so bad now that I've uploaded the photo. Maybe I'll just keep this image in my mind and try to avoid looking at the back of the hat ever again. Also, I have a bit of the sock yarn that I made this hat with left over so I'm hoping if I have enough gray left over from the thermal sweater I might be able to make a matching scarf of some kind.

1. Your front door is probably easier to kick in than you think it is and having an open balcony and front door only one floor above ground level are not enough of a deterrent to discourage someone from proving this fact some time between 3:30 and 8 in the drizzling rain.
2. Burglars in a rush only grab things that are sitting out in plain sight or are in the first drawer, a filling cabinet or even the second drawer are hiding places enough to foil someone nervous about being caught.
3. Don't store the only copy of important or valuable data on your laptop.
4. Socialist schemes might be better for achieving a certain minimum amount of service for everyone but it also means that we're all stuck in the same pile of paper repair orders waiting to be transferred to the computer system several days before any actual repair work can be done.
5. Just because an insurance agent finally shows up at your flat doesn't mean he actually knows what he has ensured.
6. Possibly most importantly: check outside in the gutter and under the bushes to see if the aforementioned thieves with expeditiousness on their mind have discarded any items such as tv licenses, old receipts or passports that they may have liberated from a top desk drawer.