Catch Up

I haven't been knitting a whole lot lately, but having said that I may retract that statement because I do knit for about an hour each evening. I guess I feel like I'm not knitting much because I'm still working on the same Christmas projects and haven't started anything new lately. At any rate, I'm making progress with the hats and scarves for Christmas, and that's important to me! I'd really love to enter the actual Christmas season in December with all my gifts finished, rather than having to work until the wee hours every night the week before Christmas to finish everything, which has happened many times!

After reading a blog that's near and dear to my heart, since it's my daughter's, Threaded Thoughts (http://www.knitandpurl.com/blog/) and chuckling over her knitting "ladies night out," I decided to share a few laughs with whoever may read my blog regarding my fellow knitters from the Gatlinburg trip. Cathy is still having major problems and has only a few inches done on her scarf --- I'm not sure what the problem is other than she just doesn't want to knit enough to actually spend the time practicing.

Now, Sue, on the other hand, has caught on fairly well. She tried the fun fur and couldn't handle that, so she bought some Lion Thick Chenille and had me cast on a scarf. She had accomplished quite a bit on it until this past weekend, when she tried to teach one of her friends to knit and managed to drop the stitches on her own project and couldn't figure out how to salvage it! So now we have to start her scarf over and I think she decided not to try to teach anyone else for a while! Too funny.

Now, Linda, my start pupil, is going great guns and bought Bernat Boa and learned how to cast on from a knitting book. She called me at home and we discussed the yarn and decided she should cast on 18 stitches for her scarf, which she did, but the next day she showed me that she'd done about 4 inches and had managed to pick up stitches to the tune of now having 31 rather than 18! Golly jeepers - maybe I'm just not such a good teacher judging by the problems my students have! Anyway, we decided for Linda that she'd start decreasing back down to 18 stitches, and then close to the end of the scarf she could increase back to 31 and do another 4 inches. She liked that idea, so I hope it turns out okay! This could possibly be the dawning of a new pattern!

And, last but not least, Joan (fellow employee) knew how to knit but hadn't knitted in years and started again after I showed her some of my scarves about 6 months ago. She borrowed a hat pattern from me that is made on 10 1/2 circular, 16" needles with worsted yarn. Only problem is she bought Lion Thick and Quick and used a 29# circular needle, and her husband thought she was knitting a toilet bowl cover! So she brought in the 4 inches she had knitted and we figured out her gauge and the correct number of stitches, and started her over with 16" circular needles.

Ain't life grand!

Good Intentions

I haven't accomplished a whole lot knitting wise lately, but I've really had good intentions. I've been bogged down for a couple of weeks with GI problems and just haven't felt like doing much of anything. Although, I did manage to go away for the weekend with friends and "rough it" in a cabin way back in the hills of Kentucky - so far back that only 4-wheel drive vehicles or better can even get to the place. No running water, no plumbing, no electricity, actually not much of anything except for peace and quiet and good friends to laugh and talk with. We cooked outside on wood fires and had a wonderful weekend -- some of my friends are really into this stuff and we actually had fried chicken, biscuits and baked potatoes one night, and hamburgers and fresh-cut french fries another! I can't even do that well in my nice city home with all the modern conveniences! While the cabin didn't have any conveniences to speak of, it still had a loft where we threw mattresses down and spent the night with a roof over our heads, which to my way of thinking is a whole lot better than sleeping on the ground would have been! And for recreation we had a basketball goal, and horseshoe pit, and tire swings, etc. The cabin did have a wonderful porch along the whole front and a great swing at one end where I managed to do a little knitting with one of my friends. The others thought we were silly and much preferred to be out on the four-wheelers, but after an hour long ride the first night, in the dark, through the woods, over hills (mountains to my way of thinking), and through creeks, etc. I was very content to sit on the porch and knit a little! "Just a swingin!!"

KY Cabin 


I did manage to finish the hat I'm making for my son in Fixation tiger stripes, so I'm still on target for my Christmas presents. I've now cast on another Fixation hat for my grandson, and the second of the red and white striped Christmas hats, and 3 different scarves, just because I couldn't wait to see how the yarns were going to look. All in all, I guess I'm doing okay!
Our group, minus L who was taking the pic.