When I read other people's blogs I'm always amazed at how much knitting they manage to complete. I think I knit alot, but my completed projects seem miniscule next to other people's.

The Yarn Harlot was in Salt Lake City a week or so ago wearing an really beautiful shawl she had just finished. The pictures on her blog just don't do it justice. She's working on the second sock of her traveling sock pair and has multiple pictures of other projects she's working on or has finished. I've been working on the same sock all summer - I'm almost through with the top. I did finish my Interweave Knits wave skirt though. I love this skirt. I wore it into the local mall the other day and I was only there a few minutes, but I was stopped three times by people who wanted to know where I got the skirt. I wore it to the Yarn Harlot's book signing and was practically mobbed by other knitters. It turned out much better than I thought it would. Here's the picture:

A Great Procrastinator

I'm not really a bad blogger-----I'm just a really great procrastinator.
I might finally have a few minutes to catch up before Daughter realizes I've taken over the computer. (It's MY computer!!! Okay, so I think it's my computer, but apparently I'm delusional.)

I've been doing a bit of knitting, a bit of traveling, a bit of reading, and a bit of working. Nothing like a balanced life, at least from a Buddhist perspective.

I knitted this cute little baby hat. There's no pattern, I just knitted it out of some bits and pieces from my stash.

Did I mention my stash? I have a LARGE stash. I have yarn in there that is older than I am. I have no explanation for this, but it really is true.

I'm working on a pattern for a bunch of baby bootees - the pattern will be for sale in a month or so. Here's a preview of one pair - this is the happiness symbol, so of course these bootees are called "Happy Feet":

I've also been knitting the Wave skirt from the Spring 2005 issue of Interweave Knits. I love this pattern. It's a bit hard to follow, but it's an easy knit and it's turning out really well. I'm hoping to have it done in a day or two - I'm also hoping I have some spare time to post it. We'll see how things go.

Running With the Big Dogs

Shakespeare is a bit disgruntled and says I have to do my own blogging today. We've been off to Disneyland for the past week or so. Shakespeare spent his week at a kennel where he was entirely spoiled and came home a bit bossy and fussy. He now thinks all dinners should be served with gravy. But he did lose a couple of pounds of winter flab from running with the big dogs all week long at the kennel. He usually travels with us, but since we couldn't take him on the rides (imagine those ears flapping on a roller coaster) he had to visit the kennel instead.

On the knitting front, I haven't been doing much except going to Disneyland, collapsing late at night in the hotel room, and then going back to Disneyland. I've knitted in a lot of strange places, but I haven't tried it on amusement park rides yet. Maybe next time. I'm currently working on a baby afghan and a pair of green jaywalker socks. I'm hoping to post photos tomorrow.

Running With the Big Dogs

Shakespeare is a bit disgruntled and says I have to do my own blogging today. We've been off to Disneyland for the past week or so. Shakespeare spent his week at a kennel where he was entirely spoiled and came home a bit bossy and fussy. He now thinks all dinners should be served with gravy. But he did lose a couple of pounds of winter flab from running with the big dogs all week long at the kennel. He usually travels with us, but since we couldn't take him on the rides (imagine those ears flapping on a roller coaster) he had to visit the kennel instead.

On the knitting front, I haven't been doing much except going to Disneyland, collapsing late at night in the hotel room, and then going back to Disneyland. I've knitted in a lot of strange places, but I haven't tried it on amusement park rides yet. Maybe next time. I'm currently working on a baby afghan and a pair of green jaywalker socks. I'm hoping to post photos tomorrow.

Shakespeare Checks In

Hello. I'm Shakespeare. I am going to make an occasional guest appearance on this blog, but I am not a silly chihuahua, so don't expect to see me in some dumb knitted sweater. I prefer to appear nude. Holly has been knitting instead of petting me. I don't approve, but she does it anyway. So she has some projects to show you.
These are my Knitting Olympics projects. As usual, I'm running a bit behind. I think there should be a medal for finishing last--I'm sure I've won it. I made two pair of fingerless mittens and one pair of baby bootees out of one skein of yarn. I think the yarn is called Magico. I hate those half-skeins hanging around, so I try to use up everything. The baby bootees have been given away to a new little sister of my daughter's friend. My daughter and I are wearing the mittens. She says I'm too old for fingerless mittens. Apparently you can only wear them when you're ten. I don't get this as obviously you can have cold hands at any age and I think I might as well warm up in style.

What does this have to do with Knitting?

Nothing. I just like the picture. This is Daughter and Mom (mine, not Daughter's). I was looking for a picture of our dog, but I'm easily distracted and decided to post this one instead.

Learning to Knit

There are so many new knitters these days - when and where did you learn to knit?

I learned to knit because my mother sent me to knitting lessons. I don't know why she did this. She wasn't much of a knitter herself, and judging from her years of comments about knitting in general, I don't think it's a skill she highly values. But this was in the mid-sixties before women's lib, so maybe it was one of those homemaking skills my mother thought I should know.

Anyway, once a week a friend and I would ride our bikes to the local yarn shop for our lessons. We split a ball of yarn, my friend picked the color which I'm sure was called "Barf Brown". The lady at the yarn shop was a bit fierce, so let's just say I didn't find knitting relaxing. But after several weeks of this I managed to produce a strange sixties-style Barf-Brown garter stitch headband. Oddly enough, I kept knitting. I remember knitting a really long and horrible red, white and blue acrylic ribbed scarf for my brother - he actually wore it - and an assortment of hats and some doll clothes.

So since I'm now fifty, I've been knitting most of my life - and I have the stash to prove it. In a few more posts I'm going to have to show you just how old stash yarn can be.

Failure at First Olympics

I'm an expert knitter, but a really bad blogger - so any advise, please pass it on.

That said, now I get to give my results for the KNITTING OLYMPICS . I'm a little behind on this, but then again, I'm hardly ever on time for anything.

You did notice that most Olympic athletes don't medal? Maybe they all have a story similar to mine.

I had a lot of little projects on the knitting agenda, so I entered the biathalon division. I had in mind 1 and 1/2 pairs of fingerless gloves, a pair of baby bootees and my first ever pair of Jaywalker socks. The event started well. I cast on the 1/2 fingerless glove during opening cermonies and finished quickly. I finished the second pair within a few days and cast on the first bootee. Sometime along the way I cast on the first Jaywalker and got the top partially completed. Then disaster struck. During the start of the second week I was lured away from my event and towards an alternate event called "Sledding with Children". This resulted in a run down a hill and over a mogul. I gained speed at an alarming pace and would have been going still, except for that fence. Owww---. Later that night as I was watching Olympic highlights and working on the Jaywalker it was apparant that I had sustained a more serious sports injury than first suspected. I had sprained my right knitting appendage. It was swelling. The Jaywalker knitting, done on size 1 double points and involving many increases and decreases, was quickly making my sports injury painful. So even after an hour or so of ice I had to slow down switched back to the easier event - the simple baby bootees. All went well for the next hour or so - but then as you can plainly see in the above picture, I had a rather shocking equipment breakage.
Some people would say that I'm never knitting with a full pair of needles - but those people would be wrong.
Still, I persevered. I did finish the bootees, but by the time my hand was back up to Jaywalker caliber the Olympics were over. And I really wanted that cool gold medal button too.