Did I say that?

Dear Cynthia,

Today I uttered words I thought I would never speak. I made a special trip over to the yarn store, and said, "I'm looking for some double pointed needles, size zero." Even the sales person wondered what I might be doing with such tiny needles. Up until now, the smallest needle I've used has been a size two. (I don't know if you recall a time in which I decreed that I would not knit with any needles smaller than size eight. It's hard to believe that nowadays, most of my knitting is done with needles smaller than size eight. I guess I have been "enlightened", or possibly I've gone insane.) In any case, I got a book from the library this week, Nancy Bush's "Folk Knitting in Estonia". I put the book on hold months ago, hoping that it had a pattern for an Estonian scarf of Nancy Bush's which I saw online a while back. In any case, no scarves of any kind in this particular book, but several pairs of mittens, one of which really caught my eye because of how the cuff was made. I looked in my "yarn collection" (doesn't that sound so much better than "stash"), and decided that I have yarn which should work just fine for this project, but I lacked size zero needles. So, now I have some, and I have to really get going on these mittens right away, just so that I may return the book to the library in four weeks.....

As I was buying the needles, the sales person said, "Do you know about our sale?" Sale, what sale? The bad news is that the yarn store, which is walking distance from my house, is going out of business for the time being. The good news is that there is a close-out sale. Spend $75, and get 40% off. And so, I accepted the challenge. They have a nice selection of Cascade 220 right now (less so after my visit). I bought enough to make each of the boys a sweater of my own design which has been churning around in my head for a while. (Note: The colors are much deeper and wonderful than this rather crummy photo shows.) Anyway, more on that project at a later time. I also treated myself to a pattern for some felted bowls. A columnar-shaped one caught my eye, because I'd like to make it to "cover" a used tin can, for use as a pencil holder, or straight needle holder, or flowers, or something like that. More on that at a later time, too.

I have also made a little progress on my shawl and sock ('little' being the key word in that sentence, thanks to all of the time which was vacuumed up with the studying I did for last night's exam). New photos of current projects in my next post. Not exactly a "cliff hanger", is it.... However, until then, warm regards!

Laura (aka YarnThrower)