Miniature hats take a lot less time

Greetings, and Dear Cynthia,

Here is the current state of my my "boring tan sock yarn" that matches yours:

I'm thinking about what sort of sock I'm going to make with it -- probably an original pattern. It was soooo great to visit with you, even if only for a couple of hours, while I was in Fort Wayne a couple of weeks ago! Next time we'll have to make sure we have some time to knit...

I've had a whirlwind week at school, and let's just say that I survived, even having to leave early yesterday to care for my sick seven year old. 41% of my ortho grade was determined within a span of 24 hours (and included three different, though all high-stress, assessments). I also had to give a 20 minute presentation for a different class on Tuesday, but now I am virtually done with that class for the rest of the year. Big sigh of relief, so today I'm here to tell you about actual knitting progress.

I finished the pair of Tofutsies socks on our way home from Fort Wayne:

I used the "Diagonal Lace" pattern from the Wendy Knits book "Socks from the Toe Up." It's the first time I've used the "heel flap" style on a toe-up sock:

It will be interesting to wear these socks which contain fiber from shrimp and crab shells...

I also finished a cute little hat ornament, shown here with a can of soda for scale:

I *LOVE* the beads! It is from a Blackberry Ridge kit, "Mini Hat and Mitten Ornaments," and there should be enough materials for me to make all of the ornaments shown on the front of the pattern. I'm not sure if I'll keep them or give them away as gifts... Nice to tackle something which I can finish in a reasonable amount of time given my schedule these days.

I am contemplating making sweatshirt/hoodies for DH and the boys for Christmas. Recall that I did this last year, and though I finished them at the final hour, it was not without a certain amount of stress. I get done with classes/exams on December 22nd, I think, so not sure if such an idea would be wise with the rest of my obligations... Well, actually, I'm quite certain that such an idea is *unwise* and *unrealistic*...but isn't that how we knitters/sewers are? Anyway, stay tuned to see if sanity reigns or not...

I hope this finds you all well! I'm going to go make another knitted ornament :-)

Warm regards,

Laura (YarnThrower)

Happy Anniversary!

Greetings and Dear Laura:

Oh, it was so fun to get to see you last weekend! Too short, but that's always the way of it. And how fun to figure out that it was 10 years ago in the fall that we traveled to Duluth together and came back knitters! (And you first started suspecting that you were having a baby!) What a great trip. I look back at that time and marvel that so much of how I thought my life would be 10 years later (if I had indeed thought much about it) is nowhere near how the reality has turned out to be. High on the list of "I wouldn't have believed it if you told me" is the size of my stash - not to mention all of the things that I have knitted!

We took a look back at that trip when we started the blog almost four years ago. I thought I'd post a link to your story, and also to mine. I think that if on that trip we had tried to look forward 10 years to what we might be doing, if we had accurately predicted our knitting obsession in any fashion, we would not have predicted the yarn that we both purchased on our Anniversary Trip to the yarn store! Probably even if we had discussed it before we walked into the store, we wouldn't have thought we'd each buy this:

Tan-colored sock yarn! But we have a long term plan that will be revealed in the fullness of time.

As I mentioned, I posted to the blog 3-4 times while I was at Stitches Midwest, and due to some convergence of the planets in the internet arena, all of those posts disappeared into cyberspace, never to be recovered. I'm (mostly) over my bitterness, and I'll catch up with posting soon! ;)

Keep knitting!


Cynthia (aka Designated Knitter)
-- Post From My iPhone