Pause.

First, thank you for your kind words of encouragement and for sharing your stories about pets who have endured illness and disability. It means a lot to Mike and me. I am happy to report that Danger is adjusting to his medication schedule and vision loss very quickly. He's got a new ball with a bell inside that he is able to locate when we play fetch. And, he has chased his sister in circles around the bushes in the yard leaving us watching in amazement that he is already able to navigate around obstacles in his own environment. We've got a lot of follow-up care to juggle and things to learn, but we're getting on very well. 

Progress on the Channel Cardigan is slow.  If you had any trouble with your stitch counts during cast-on, it wasn't your fault. It was mine! Katie, was kind enough to point out that the equation I'd given you wasn't working out. It's correct now. 

During our IRL knit along sessions, we've been experiencing some bumps and bruises. Mari was the first to realize, that her sleeve was MUCH larger than she expected. Fortunately, Mari was able to drop a needle size  AND a pattern size to get a better fitting sleeve. 

Liz had the same size issue. Unfortunately, Liz had already accounted for a difference in gauge between her swatch and the pattern by changing needle and pattern sizes, so her "FIX" is much more complicated. It involves a lot of math and spreadsheets. I wish I was kidding. I'm not. Wildly, Liz and Meg are using the same yarn for their sweaters, and Meg's gauge is smaller than the pattern by 1 stitch over four inches.   It shouldn't make sense.

It's increasingly apparent that the Channel Cardigan is going to take longer to knit than we had hoped.  Rather than rush through and become frustrated with knitting, we've decided to take a small pause before preparing to cast-on the body of the beast. We all need a little respite and a little mindless reprieve.  We'll resume work shortly!