4 makers

DPN holders, made by Jesse, for Leah

Cabled sweater sleeve, made by Leah,
(who will learn how to fix mis-crossed cables during this project!),
for Leah or maybe Debbie

fruit loop glass stitch markers/beads, made by Scott,
for the fun of it

socks, made by Debbie, for the bigfooted moose boy

Houston, we have a problem

Or do we?

You may remember the Estonian Garden Wrap that appeared out of nowhere, entirely pleasant project that it is. Well, I have two skeins of this lovely Woolen Rabbit handpainted yarn and am pretty sure the wrap will be the right size (long enough that I can wrap it once around my neck and ends hang to waist if I want to use it as a big, beautiful scarf) if I use every last bit of those two skeins. This means the transition from one skein to the next happens at the mid-point, which will be front and center on the wearer's neck. But there's a significant difference in depth of color from one skein to the next, even though I tried my hardest to choose similar ones when I bought them last February.

Overexposed pic in the bright winter sunshine,
but you get the idea.
The shift is no less jarring in real life.
I've seen the suggestion of alternating skeins every other row to make the transition less abrupt, but that made it stripey, so I only did it once. I kept knitting for a while, thinking it would mellow out, but no.

I have asked people's opinions around here, but I need more input and so I turn to you, dear blog readers, for a poll, because I know you'll be straight with me and tell it like it is. When answering, please keep in mind that I have enjoyed every stitch of this project and would love to see it through to completion, but would not mind even a wee little bit if it needs to be ripped back some or all of the way. Really. Truly. Cross my heart.

So, what say you? (if you're reading this through a blog aggregator, click through to my blog to vote)

What's next for this Estonian Garden Wrap?

Just quit yer fussin' and keep knitting. It's handpainted yarn, you knucklehead, so embrace the variations.

Tear back to the transition and try knitting from the other end of the 2nd skein, as it may be darker there.

That yarn wants to be something else. Tear the whole thing back and work on your green sweater until the Philosopher's Wool cardigan kit arrives. :-)

I'll describe a different solution in the comments.

.

I just rec'd a message that the poll isn't working for somebody, but it has worked for a couple of other people so far, so I'll leave it up here. If it doesn't work for you, could you please just leave a comment instead? Thanks!

I can haz sitches

Now that Gram has received the cardinal woodland shawl I made to keep her warm this winter, it's not a secret anymore and I can post a picture here.

It was knit with three laceweight yarn strands, one strand of Army green coned wool ($1 at Goodwill) and two strands of forest green wool ($1/skein at the weavers' guild yarn tag sale), to produce a heathered worsted weight yarn that softened and bloomed nicely upon washing. Since I still had a bunch of this yarn left over and have been wanting to knit myself a sweater (after the last four were for other family members), I decided to stick with it and take advantage of the predictable lull in the workload this week.


I had been considering the Susie Hoodie, but I'm not fond of that point at the back lower edge, so I decided to just wing it, pulling bits from here and there, putting them together to see what happens. I cast on a cabled panel with provisional cast-on, using the chart from A Cardigan for Arwen. When that was long enough to go around my wrist, I kitchenered the ends and picked up stitches from a long edge, knitting up from there to make a sleeve.

A day or so later, the sleeve is up to underarm length. Not sure how I want to handle shoulder construction, so I'll figure that out later and cast on for the second sleeve later today. Meanwhile, since there's no identifying information on any of this yarn, minimal chance of getting more if I need it, and I have no idea of yardage, I weighed the sleeve to estimate how many grams I'd need for the remainder of the sweater. Seems like I'll have more than enough, so fingers crossed and forward we go!

---

Y'all know I type for a living, right? Well, believe me, a transcriptionist understands that typos happen, even to the best of us, and there are informal situations where it doesn't even matter, but some things are not just isolated boo-boos in a quickly written note and they make me cringe. So when Leah bought some Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Worsted for the felted stained glass fan bag she made (which is on an airplane to Florida at this very moment) and left one of the skeins on my desk, something on the label caught my eye. I blinked and looked again.

4-1/2 sitches per inch? Sitches? Where the heck is the first T?! One of the top 10 yarns on Ravelry, in over 19,000 projects and over 11,000 stashes, and nobody in the company noticed or, worse, nobody cares?

Ack!! :::transcriptionist's brain goes kaboom!:::

Oh, there are a few other typos on the label too, but none so screamingly cringe-worthy as sitches. I breathed deeply and tried to let it go. Really, I did. But in the end, I couldn't. I thought maybe nobody had noticed and thought certainly they would care, so I submitted a gentle message through their site. It's been many days since then, with not even so much as an acknowledgement of my helpful volunteer editing. I'm telling myself they must be very busy with holiday/year-end activities to not even respond to customer feedback because certainly they'd care, right? Right?! Spell checkers are our friends! Good grammar for all!! RIGHT?!

:::sigh::: Time for a walk in the woods. :-)

knitting for a knitter's knitting

She's reluctant to admit it, but there's no denying it anymore. My mom has become a Knitter (with a capital K). She knit some impressive stuff a long time ago, but then she put the needles away for many years. I think it was that whole raising-two-kids-while-working-full-time-and-getting-bachelor's-and-master's-degrees thing. We all know how those piffly bothers can interrupt a good knitting session.

Before felting,
a big, lumpy leap of faith.
Anyhow, mom knit me a poncho (which I love and wear often) on the sly as a xmas gift a few years ago, but she still claimed she could take it or leave it, this little pointy stick hobby of mine.

But then she thought it would be fun to knit a dress for her coworker's toddler. And a little bunny and hat to go with the dress.

And then a sweater for herself.

And then she spent a day at Stitches East with us and the subsequent knitting went mobile. She was knitting on the deck of our beach house in South Carolina, knitting in the airport, knitting while waiting for a performance to start, bringing her knitting along to show to friends (who also knit), and...you get the picture. :-)

When we were leaving her house one afternoon after a quick visit, I asked what she was doing for the evening, since it's a rare evening or weekend day when she doesn't have something planned. With a big smile, she said, "I'm knitting."

"Hey, it's as big as a sweater!
I could knit almost a whole sweater body in a week?!"
So, when we were thinking of Christmas gifts, Leah decided to knit her Grandma a knitting bag to replace the little tote bag she's been using. She chose the felted stained glass fan bag, a pattern she has had in her favorites for a long time. The only question she had about the pattern was a quickie about the three-needle bind-off at the top edge, but otherwise she knit it entirely on her own.

Noro felts beautifully! Leah defuzzified it afterwards by shaving with a safety razor. Leather handles taken from a purse we got at Goodwill for $4. Pile o' Noro and magnetic clasp bought at our LYS.

Given how my mom spent some quiet time on Christmas afternoon, we think this project is a winner in every way.

afterwards

My mom, Squirt (nephew's dog),
and a Juno Regina wrap in progress.

Today? Brunch with knitterfriends.

Ahhh...

knitpurlpurlknit

Merry Christmas, everybody!

I hope you finished your gift knitting in time!

the calm

Winter is the time for comfort,
for good food and warmth,
for the touch of a friendly hand
and for a talk beside the fire.
It is the time for home.
~ Edith Sitwell(with thanks to Coventry Regional Farmers' Marketfor the lovely quote, such a perfect fit)

Enjoy, everybody!

flurries

There's been a flurry of activity around here. I have a feeling we're not the only ones experiencing this (and enjoying it).

A flurry of bead transactions online and in real life.

A flurry of finishing projects, including early morning stealth Kitchener stitching and a secret blocking place.

A flurry of bakery orders on a nonstandard schedule.

A big flurry of snowflakes a few days ago = only about 8" here, much more in not too far away.

A flurry of work that my clients are clearing off their desks and depositing on mine. But it's like hot potato. I don't want it here over the weekend either, so a flurry of trying to get it all done and covering for some people who are out on vacation.

A flurry of visits from friends as they pass through town and unexpected visits with people we bump into at assorted events.

And a full-on blizzard of smiles when Leah finished a bunny with dress (and sweater!)

and gave it to the little girl she babysits.

Also a flurry of handknits scooped up and given new homes when the knitting box was offered at a family gathering last weekend. Yahoo -- so nice to see the things we make be so enthusiastically received!

---

Quickie blog post. Two shakes of a lamb's rabbit's tail and I'm back to work again. On a mission to clear the desk! Not late, not stressed, just psyched!

could've been worse

Anybody remember the icefishermitts I knit for Scott a couple of years ago? They're being put to good use again today, like this:

But, um, something's not quite right.
Do you see it?

How about now?

Sheesh, hon, be careful out there!

As least patching a knitted thumb tip doesn't require a trip to the emergency room!

hey, where'd that come from?

I cast on the Estonian Garden Wrap (yes, another one) just before vacation. I didn't knit on it while we were away, because I was doing other projects, and I've finished plenty of other things since we got back, so I'm not really sure how this one arrived at this point. I think that just goes to show the intuitiveness of this pattern, how easily it flows from the needles. A lot of bang for the buck, I think, when it's the kind of pattern that goes easily into my head, so I can just zip along without referring to the chart a zillion times. I'm subbing beads for the nupps this time, using the dental floss loopie way of putting them on, as demo'd by Mona from Dye Dreams when we were at Stitches East. Loving it. I'm not going to have enough yarn, though, so I suppose I'll need to deal with that eventually. ;-)

Just had a brainstorm to help with one of Leah's xmas projects. Bingo!

smilemakers

It's the little things in every day that are putting an almost constant smile on my face lately. I'm still working lots (and happy about that), but the festive feeling in the air just can't be beat. Because this is a feeling I don't want to forget, here's a list of some of last weekend's smilemakers:

1. Participating in a community quiltmaking event.

2. Asking a certain silly boy to give me a hand with some twisted cordmaking. He scurried into my office a minute later with a little twisting contraption he made. Bzzz -- cord twisted -- zip zip zip! If you know Jesse, you know he must use batteries, switches, and gears in every possible situation!

3. Donating those mittens by hanging them on a charity mitten and hat tree.

4. Eating sushi late at night with three of my favorite kids.

5. Knitting two socks at a time, on one circular needle, from one ball of yarn. Just because.

6. Browsing an art museum with kids who are old enough to enjoy it.

7. Having told Contraption Boy that another pair of mittens would need cord made for them too, he scurried off to his lair workshop bedroom and emerged a few minutes later with a bigger, better, more complicated cord twister, talking about gear ratios and more power and other motorized details that give him a buzz.



8. Knowing that these mittens will be given away too.

9. Bumping into old friends everywhere we go, including as we were toodling down the highway, where we managed not to bump into them but still have a conversation at highway speeds.

10. Nibbling an entirely unexpected treat of African foods, offered for free and presented beautifully, at a Kwanzaa celebration.

11. Singing with the ukulele band at a show for folks with Alzheimer's.

12. Going dairy-free because I think I've become allergic. :-( Finding out that dairy-free alternatives are pretty tasty and do not cause me to feel like I'm suffocating from my own phlegm and swollen airway. :-) Bonus smiles from the fridge: The pickles made by some farmer friends include Love as one of their ingredients.

13. Watching Leah realize last night that in the past week she has knit on a gift equivalent in size to the body of a sweater. You could practically see the smoke coming out of her ears and there was a definite smile on her face as she realized that she could knit herself an actual sweater in the same amount of time.

14. Seeing a grand total of SIX live music performances over the course of the weekend, including a handbell choir whose shows I adore. They're not the group shown below, but they did play this song and it grabs me every time.



15. Reading on Handmade Homeschool about 29 Gifts. Thinking it would be a fun family project. Then realizing we were already doing it, had been doing it for as far back as I could remember, and would probably continue indefinitely because that's just what we do. Maybe giving all those little gifts, tangible and intangible, is the true reason for the smiles.

under wraps

Oh, the little white lies, they're flying fast and furious these days. There's whispering and closed doors and secrets and cover-ups. Such a good-natured tangled web!

The pic above is part of the fun. I can't tell you what it is or where it's going, but aren't the colors pretty in the winter sunshine? We'll use it here as a placeholder, because I'm not fond of a pictureless post, and invite those of you on Ravelry over to see our updated project pages, both mine and Leah's.

On mine, you might notice the two projects that go together in the first row. Putting it on Ravelry will keep it a secret from its recipient, but I put the finishing touches on it yesterday and am pretty happy with how it turned out. If you leave a comment, please help me keep the secret, but yay, such a good feeling when a project comes together (mostly) as envisioned.

It's been almost a year since Leah's Ravelry projects were updated. Wow, the Goob's skills have come a long way in the past year and her enthusiasm just keeps growing. Gotta love a hobby that can grow with you for a lifetime.

reason #64938 why I never get any work done

It's because I just can't resist the little playtime breaks. Just a quick moment to take a pic of some new cow beads Scott made on request.

Cute cows.
Okay, no problem there. Really, it just took a minute or two. But then my mind wanders. How about...

Cow tipping!

He ain't heavy,
he's my udder!

I tried so hard to make ac(r)owbats. I got one to sit on its butt, but but they just wouldn't balance nose to nose.

And, um, the other positions were just not appropriate for this family-friendly blog. I should be ashamed of myself. But I'm not. heh heh...

TGIF, everybodeeee!

tis the season

There's snow on the ground and twinkling lights strung all 'round town. Time for the knitwear to get put to use!

I brought the newly finished Fanning The Flame mittens to the Christmas tree farm for a picture. You may remember that I knit them on the wrong size needles, so they turned out too big, but I lined them with a barely-worn pair of mittens from last year and stitched them together at the cuffs. Now they're extra warm, with ragg wool on the inside and handpainted pretty sock yarn on the outside. This pattern was fun to make. It's my first modular knitting project. If I were to do it again, I think I'd modify the thumb placement, putting it at the center of the top arc of the fan so the fan juts out as a gusset. I guess I'm not a fan of the peasant thumb. Still, neat construction. I'd probably like them even better if I knit them with the correct size needles. ;-)

A friend sent a link to a recent family photo album and I was happy to see the hat I knit for their older daughter two years ago, worn through last winter until she outgrew it, now popping up to warm the noggin of their younger daughter!

Yesterday was a snowy day when we were especially thankful to work and learn at home. The guys made bagels and honey oatmeal bread in the mobile oven, then played a battle card game they've been loving. The girl continued her stealth elf projects, got a stylin' new haircut and an excellent Talbot's wool coat at Goodwill (woot!), and made gingerbread from an 18th century recipe. By evening, we were all settled in by the tree, enjoying the warmth of the wood stove and comforts of home.

walking in a winter wonderland

Leah's contribution to the Red Scarf Project, a basketweave scarf knit with Cascade 220 Superwash in Really Red. Modeled during a quick stop on the side of the road on our way to the WinterFresh farmers' market, as we had the first real snowfall of the season last night and every single branch in the woods was covered with snow, every melting water drop of which was glittering in the bright sunshine this morning.

And curses to Scott, as I was thinking and saying that we were in a winter wonderland, but that thought was immediately followed in my head by what would then be belted out in real life if Scott had been with us... la la la "...Walking 'Round in Women's Underwear!"

Palindrome

Pattern: Palindrome. Knit without a cable needle. Cool reversible cables, and easy too! Excellent social knitting, which is a good thing, as there was a fabulous lot of social time in the week I was knitting this.

For: Red Scarf Project

Yarn: Lamb's Pride Superwash, Shane's Red, scored at a stash swap.

---

Pattern? Free.

Yarn? Free.

Calmly doing something for others, while enjoying the sunshine or visiting with friends, at a time of year when so many people are running around like chickens with their heads cut off? Priceless.

---

p.s. Christina, I don't have contact info to reach you directly, but no, the Hybrid sweater is no longer available. I'll update the old blog post to reflect this.

whoa.

This week felt like we were navigating the crazy minefield of life. Among many, many other challenges and crises for those around us, we had half a day of no electricity and, later the same day, a water main break that eroded beneath our street and threatened to collapse part of it into the nearby ravine.

Yes, really.
"Please drive to the left, sir. We're concerned about a collapse,"
sez water company dude at the end of our driveway one evening.

Yesterday afternoon and evening presented the opportunity for a bit of a breather. After dropping Leah off for a ukulele band gig (where, BTW, the assisted living place's residents know how to par-tay!), Jesse and I headed out for a nice walk.

We were astounded to find blooming roses -- in December! in Connecticut!! -- and springtime blossoms on the poor, confused trees. We walked randomly, unfamiliar with the surrounding area just a short distance off a main road lined with retail places -- and we all know how I feel about retail places. I couldn't believe it when we looked to the right and saw a wide path leading off into a patch of forest! And so we headed off into the woods, shuffling through the leaves. Ahh. Part A of feeling a little more grounded.

Part B was then heading off to Old Sturbridge Village for their Christmas By Candlelight event, which has been mentioned here many times before. Spending the evening making memories with my family, nibbling gingerbread and sipping mulled cider, listening to live music, chilly air and a beautiful setting, bumping into friends, a magic show, a hug from Santa, a horse-drawn carriage ride, and a barn dance...

Leah and the other dancers going 'round for the next part of the fun.
She in her best 1840s-ish garb, including dress she sewed,mittens I knit, tippet and snood that she knit. Total count of handknits in use among us for the evening? 12!
Ahh! That's better!! Refreshed!

winter woolies

Yesterday was Scott's first time out with the mobile oven, selling pizzas for pay. It being his first time, I went along for support and to provide gopher services. I did, in fact, have to gopher this and gopher that at the beginning, but then I had some quiet time, so I worked a while on my Red Scarf Project donation.

Luckily, it was a gorgeous day and a pleasant location, at a nearby farm store where they sell Christmas trees. I parked myself on a big rock in the orchard and knit away happily in the sunshine. It was almost warm out.

It was a day that was light on customers, as planned, since this was to be more of a learning experience than anything. We learned plenty and have plans for streamlining and improving the process already, but Scott did a stellar job with the pizzas (pepperoni, shrimp scampi with artichoke hearts, chicken florentine) and I'd say he has that part down pat. No doubt about it, though, as the sun got lower in the sky, the breeze was downright cold.



By the end of the day, Scott was finishing up some new stitch marker sets, which are in his Glastonbury Glassworks Etsy store now. Even his little sheep stitch markers are wearing their winter woolies -- hats and scarves -- and accompanied by mittens, balls of yarn, and snowballs!

I continued to work on the red scarf while Leah was at one of her activities in the evening. Next thing I knew, the last little bit of the skein of yarn popped out of my bag, almost entirely having been knit up. I'm not sure how it happened, but I knit over THREE FEET OF SCARF yesterday! I'll weave in the ends during Leah's activity this evening and block it over the next couple of days. I expect to put the finishing touches on a pair of mittens tonight too. More winter woolies for all!

15

Somebody turned 15 yesterday! I knew it was coming. It's not a surprise.

He's now half a head taller than most doorways at Old Sturbridge Village. (Please note 3 handknits on my guys in this pic. Total of 6 handknits among the four of us when we visited OSV on T'giving. Yay for handknits in use!)

He's helpful with things like moving the cars around in the driveway, handling power tools and heavy jobs.

He comes in handy when there's a bug on the ceiling.

He works alongside Scott in the bakery/brick oven food sales.

Yet, every once in a while, like when knitting socks for him recently, it surprises the heck out of me that I have a 15-year-old son, no longer a little boy.

Especially not a little boy.

Leah's red sock on top, Jesse's blue sock beneath,
a full 3 inches longer to accommodate his size 13 feet!

detour

Leah and I were knitting along happily on our current WIPs this week when I noticed quite a few knitting bloggers spreading the word that the Red Scarf Project was way short of the number of scarves needed for its program, which gives handmade scarves to college-bound young adults who have aged out of the foster care system. Since neither of us was working on anything that's a rush, Leah and I talked it over and decided we'd set our current projects aside and take a detour for the Red Scarf Project. There was a possibility of LYS visit that evening anyway, but we agreed it would be even better if we could use stash yarn, so off she went for stash-tossing and later dumped this collection on my desk:

Hm. Seems like it's meant to be! We cast on Wed. afternoon, knit with friends Wed. evening and during It's a Wonderful Life on Thurs. evening. I did another foot or so while out with a friend last night and she's been working steadily on hers too. Not even 72 hours later, here's our progress:

Mine, on left, Palindrome pattern with spiffy reversible cables, Lamb's Pride Superwash in Shane's Red, 3 ft. long. Hers, on right, basketweave, Cascade 220 Superwash, Really Red (which is, in fact, really red, not pinkish as it looks in the picture. Have we discussed lately how much I dislike my new camera and am just about ready to drop a big wad on something infinitely better and NOT NIKON, since I'm unhappy with them?), about 2 ft. long so far.

We aim to finish them up this week so they'll reach the Orphan Foundation of America in advance of the Dec. 15 deadline. Easy peasy and feels good too.

In the post-Thanksgiving and pre-Christmas bakery lull, Scott's been back at the torch this weekend. Cute little glass sheep stitch markers, dressed in their winter knits, coming up soon!

gobble gobble

Visiting the happy turkeys at Old Sturbridge Village.

The subversive volunteer answers questions for guests of the Village. She was also asked to pose for pictures with a visiting family.

Costumed interpreters enjoying their feast
just before we headed home for ours.

Three turkeys doing the hokey pokey on the OSV green.
I don't ask why. I just pretend not to know them. :-)

rockin' the free world

Finally, the parade of post-vacation finished objects. Believe it or not, there are still more FOs to come!

Just Enough Ruffles scarf, knit by Debbie. The luscious angora yarn was purchased at Spa Knit and Spin last Feb. Leah was going to make this pattern, but it became my project instead when I needed another vacation knit. Entirely easy and quick to knit, but I think the result is pretty fabulous. This yarn, we paid for, but it occurs to me that everything else in these four pics was free or pretty darn close to it!

The scarf pin is a stick pin made by our friend Leslie Wind and received as a gift when we shared a booth at Franklin County Fiber Twist this fall. The stick travels through the back of one of Scott's glass buttons for a little more decoration where it holds the scarf ends in place.

Didja notice the cool cascading earrings Leah's wearing? Inspired by Sassafras Creations' knitting needle jewelry and our stash of aluminum straight knitting needles (which we rec'd as hand-me-downs, but don't use for knitting and were thinking about giving away), she used our pipe cutter to slice some needle shafts into loops. She then used chainmail rings to attach these to a small length of chain salvaged from who knows what. She also added a couple of rings with crystals on them, for sparkle, then hung the whole shebang on ear wires. They make just the slightest happy jingle when she walks, are colorful enough to go with everything, and the fact that they're made from knitting needles gives her a giggle.

Next up, mittens I knit in twined knitting technique. I've always been curious about this way of making extra thick and squishy fabric by knitting from both ends of a skein, alternating strands with a twist behind each stitch, so when I won two skeins of Crystal Palace Yarns Taos and saw that it was well suited to stranded knitting, it seemed a good time to give it a try. I got a Twined Knitting book from the library and really liked some of the patterns in it, but when it was time to cast on, I wanted very straightforward and simple instructions. Lisa Ellis' basic twined mittens pattern was a perfect introduction. Twined knitting is slow going and needing to frequently untwist the yarns is a little tedious, but I really didn't mind it and think the results are pretty cool. My tension was tight with the twisting of yarns, which is probably not uncommon with beginning twined knitters, so these turned out child-sized and will be donated somewhere. Another perfect opportunity to pay it forward.

In between bigger projects, Leah decided she wanted another snood, so she used weaving thread received (a big box of it, in many colors!) as a gift from a weaver to crochet one. She attached it to a headband that was in a bag of hair things received as a hand-me-down from my sister a couple of years ago.

Our lives are chock full of little gifts like these and a million more intangible kindnesses too. We are thankful for every single one of them and how they enrich our lives every day. Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the States!

satisfies all requirements

Leah, the Christmas elf, wanted to make a pair of mittens for somebody. Requirements included: 1) not girly design, 2) not boring to knit, 3) fingerless/flip-top for dexterity, 4) very warm. She bopped around on Ravelry until she formulated a plan that would satisfy all requirements, picked up some yarn at an entirely awesome knit night at our favorite lys a few days ago (following bbq wings and beer/lemonade at a nearby restaurant with a fun group of knitters), and left this on my desk yesterday afternoon:

It's a mash-up of the peekaboo mittens and deathflake chart, but she'll be modifying the peekboo opening so it overlaps.

There's a problem in the top section as a result of looser gauge with 1-color knitting and also maybe because of the peekaboo ribbing, so she'll rip that back and try something different soon. Suggestions welcome for this challenge. Smaller needles? Decrease stitches? Continue 2-color knitting (palm is checkerboard, but might look odd to have stranded knitting above deathflake motif but not below)?

Other than that glitch, she is psyched about mittens as a perfect project -- not too big, not too small, opportunity to keep it interesting but not take forever, eminently practical here in Connecticut, infinite options.

we have lift-off!

Jesse and Scott had another great day at rocket club on Saturday, including a rocket drag race for a tie.

Jesse's Viper rocket on the left, another club member's on the right.
There are so many things that can go wrong at lift-off. That's why even the most experienced rocket enthusiasts hold their breath for the countdown and everybody cheers a successful launch and landing!

The same can be said of launching a new knitting project, especially if it's your first lace project...and your first time using beads...AND the first time reading a chart!

My mom started this Juno Regina stole when we were on vacation. Because of the above challenges combined with so many yarnovers on the diagonal, she has probably knit twice as many stitches as shown here and needed to tear half of them out for a redo, but she's all the way through the spiffy pattern at one end and should be able to fly through the long central portion without a problem.

We'll probably have to go on vacation together again when she gets to the diamonds on the other end ;-), but for the coming portion, the forecast is for a smooth flight.

insideoutedness

I have lots of knitting to show you, but haven't taken pics yet. Maybe later today. Meanwhile, I wanted to show you something funky.

First, a little background: I don't shop. Oh, I'll go to Goodwill or a tag sale for the rare thing we need around here, but big retail places give me the willies, from the artificial lighting and smells to the agonizing muzak and endless racks of stuff. I'd rather buy necessary items second-hand, at a fraction of the cost and often of very high quality, or find a way to otherwise make the most of what we already have. When we do need to hit a store for something new, it's with a very definite purpose and a quick in and out.

So, one rainy morning in South Carolina, when Scott wanted to browse a nearby Bass Pro Shop (the catalogs of which he has drooled over for years), the rest of us went along for the heck of it, my thought being that it could be entertaining, since shopping without a purpose is entirely foreign to us. I was right; it was entertaining!

Pardon me if this is old news, but the memo hadn't delivered under my rock yet. Apparently, fair isle sweaters are being marketed this season. Nothing unusual about that, but this year somebody came up with the idea of putting the pieces together inside out!

With all those floats, just waiting to catch on things! Seriously? Dropping $60 on this seems like a good idea to somebody? Unless it's somebody who can re-weave ends and fix a snagged loop of yarn, I bet it's headed for the landfill within one season.

Inside, it is indeed a fair isle sweater of the usual kind. It could almost be worn inside out, which would be the usual right side out, if not for the raggedy sewn seams.

So glad to have the option of making my own, at a fraction of the cost with second-hand/reclaimed yarn, in the styles that I like best, of higher quality materials and many, many more years of expected usefulness.

Okay, enough of the snark. See what retail places do to me? It's not pretty.

Parade of FOs to come!