Rehab

Greetings and Dear Cynthia,

A big "two thumbs up" for "white whole wheat flour." DH and my kids were unable to detect that whole wheat flour was substituted for half of the white flour in the original pretzel recipe. Can you guess which pretzels my kids made? HINT: My kids are not bound to the notion that a pretzel must be any particular pre-specified shape...
About four years ago, I knit a purple, hemmed, cotton top, in the round, from the bottom up. I wore it a couple of times, but because it was cotton, I quickly ended up with a top which belled out at the bottom, and lost a couple of inches in length. It was not very flattering, to say the least, and though I loved the color and the overall design, I just never wore it because I didn't like the way it looked on me.

EXHIBIT A:For about three years, I've been thinking that I really ought to cut off the bottom from just below the front embellishment / diamond, and then make a new bottom which fixes everything I don't like about it. So, yesterday, not sure why, but I felt a sudden urge to tackle this. I removed the section below the green marker shown in this next photo, picked up the stitches, and started knitting from that point *down*.

EXHIBIT B:I removed some of the waist shaping on the lower half of the "hour glass," and then switched to slightly smaller needles to help prevent the thing from stretching as much. I'm also adding additional length to compensate for anticipated shrinkage in length. And, I'm *NOT* going to use a hem. I like hems very much, but in this particular top, I think it just made the lower edge fan out even more, in addition to making the lower edge look more bulky. So instead, I'm going to do a simple bind-off, then finish the bottom edge the same way all of the other edges are finished -- by working a row of single crochet, then a row of backwards single crochet.

It's a bit of a crap shoot -- I couldn't even verify my stitch count, because I pulled out the original pattern, and then realized that I had corrupted it quite a bit, and I kept no records of my modifications... But...I wasn't wearing it at all before, so what's the worst that can happen with it...

I'm sewing another new skirt which will coordinate well with it...so perhaps I can eke out another "something for nothing" outfit:My seven year old had an "early release" today, which means that he is home two hours early. Our school district has one of these every month, and they seem to be random in how they are scheduled. This month it's on a Thursday, last month it was a different day of the week. I don't know what parents who actually have jobs do in order to plan for these... And, I might know of one mom (ahem) who actually forgot about an early release when her son was in kindergarten two years ago, and this particular mom (ahem) was walking home from the library with her then three year old and noticed her five year old was standing outside the house when she got home -- and had been for about forty minutes! It is so nice that this mom has a wonderful neighbor living across the street who came over and played outside with the five year old until I got home...I mean, until the mom got home... (I understand that since then, this mom has instituted a large "family calendar" which has helped considerably in keeping track of many things.)

It looks like rain today. I can't complain, however, because the past few days have been gorgeous, and after all of the biking and playing tennis, etc., I think my muscles need a day off...

Warm regards,
Laura (YarnThrower)
P.S. You may have noticed that I've been taking a break from Mission Possible: 2008. I plan to resume that in May, at the latest...