Monday, July 10, 2006

Cheaper than Flying

Dear Cynthia,

There was a pancake breakfast / fly-in at the local airport over the weekend, and we went to it. Very fun! Lots of tables set up in a nice clean hangar, and good food. Plus, a lot more airplane traffic in and out of our little airport than we've ever seen, and the little 2-seater and 4-seater planes were literally taxi-ing around us as we wandered around the airplane parking lot. Many of the planes were built from "kits". I asked one man there how long it takes to assemble an airplane kit. He told me "about five years, if you really work at it." I could probably say the same thing about certain shawls or sweaters, except I'd be talking about a much lower price tag. In any case, I can see what would be so addicting and exhilarating about flying. The passion of many of the people there, the amount of knowledge that some of the people there had, etc... -- It all reminded me a lot of knitting...

I replaced my broken set of #1 dpn's and made a start on my Elite Feet Traveling Companion Socks. This is Blackberry Ridge Mer-Made in the variegated pink colorway. The pattern utilizes cables and broken ribs. It is more work than I typically devote to a sock, but fun for a change.

Also, more progress on my shawl. One could say that I "turned the corner", because, actually, I worked the "knitted on border" around the corner and started up the other side. There are four rows of border per every "live stitch" in the corner section, compared to only two rows of border per every "live stitch" on the sides. This helps it to fill in the corner area better. In order to get this far, I finished up my first Excel "check off sheet", and started the second one. For anybody keeping score, I've completed 521out of 890 border rows. Somehow I'm more motivated now that I'm heading toward the finish line. Finishing by August 4th is still within reach.

We're in our last week of swimming lessons for the summer. It's a good thing, too, because my three-year-old son is having a bad reaction to sun screen. I tried switching to a more baby-friendly brand today, but his skin is so sensitive that even that seemed to really bother him (which I could tell because he was screaming for about a minute after I put some on his chest). If you or anybody has first-hand experience with this issue, I'm all ears! Another lady at the pool thinks that once his skin clears up from this episode, the baby-friendly sun screen should be okay..... I hope that's the case! In the meantime, tomorrow he'll probably wear a tee-shirt in the pool...

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)
P.S. I've updated the dishrag count on the side bar. Will this pound of Kitchen Cotton never end?

4 comments:

Designated Knitter said...

Hey, that pancake breakfast sounds fun...I've often thought that I would like to fly. The two things that stop me are the price...and the fact I think it takes WAY more concentration than I can count on maintaining.
The shawl is beautiful! I can see why you're anxious to finish - getting into the home stretch will do that!

Anonymous said...

Go to either Willy St Coop or Community Pharmacy, they have some great sensitive skins options that aren't laden with a ton of chemicals (which is what most people and babes react to), but still protect you from the sun.

Anonymous said...

Lands End, Lands End at Sears, and specialty swim stores have spf 40-50 swim tops. You can choose from elbow length sleeves and full length sleeves. My boys have them, and it's great to cut down on the amount of sunscreen you need, since a t-shirt doesn't have as much protection. My older boy and I are sensitive to sunscreen too, and we always use baby-friendly stuff - Target-brand works fine for us now, although he used to need the expensive stuff from fancy stores - Whole Foods is closer to you, and has several brands.
Catherine

Lauren said...

I also heard there is a special detergent you can wash your regular tshirts in that gives the shirts a spf 30 or 40 rating... and it lasts through 20 washes! I can't remember where I read that.

Oh, and I might have gotten something special in the mail yesterday.............!!!!! ;-)

thanks!