Sorry to ruin your plans, Ann, but I saw this purple striped table runner and place mat at Ikea last month and instantly thought "needle holder." Well, maybe not instantly but I hadn't walked far past when I turned back and tossed them in the cart. I ended up frogging back to the place where I had all my stitches (before I somehow lost a couple--where do they go?) on the pastel scarf. I decided it was too obviously narrower so I risked angering the yarn gods and undid what I did yesterday at the craft fair, striving for perfection. *sigh* So no pictures of knitting progress.
I found a hat pattern that I liked and thought I'd knit one to donate somewhere. I mean, it's Wisconsin and it's getting cold and it's gonna get colder. Somebody's gonna need a hat. I found this nice yarn at JoAnn's, on sale, and bought the blue and burnt orange thinking I'd make a boy hat. I cast it on and got this much done when DH asked if it was a hat for me. I said, no, it's for charity and anyway it's a boy hat. See? Blue yarn. He shook his head. Not boy yarn? Nope, girl yarn; it's fuzzy. Evidently boy yarn isn't fuzzy. So I'm knitting a girl hat with my fuzzy sale yarn, but I still want to make a boy hat so I bought this Galway wool. It's tweedy not fuzzy--boy yarn. It got the DH seal of approval this morning. Whew.
I'm finding I'm addicted to the Slightly Clerical Scarf I printed off Mason-Dixon Knitting's blog a few weeks ago. I made one for me and then I found this lovely wool on sale in these pretty colors so I'm making another one. It's small enough to carry to work and to errands and appointments, and being garter stitch, not very mentally taxing when I've only got a few moments to knit.
What do you do with a single skein of Moda Dea's Sassy Stripes that 
you couldn't resist on sale because it's red? You knit a couple squares for Oliver's blanket, that's what you do. I don't know how to link things, but if you check out Mason-Dixon Knitting's blog Kay has info about it. Oliver's a young man in England confined to a wheelchair. He needs a new one, and they're pricey. A friend of his mom's got the idea to ask people to knit 4" squares of sock, fingering or 4-ply yarn that she'll make into a blanket and raffle off to help fund Oliver's new wheels. I was intrigued by the project but reluctant because of overseas mailing costs. Then I find that Kay has jumped on the bandwagon and is making an American blanket so we can help out without incurring high postage costs. Thanks, Kay! So fire up your size 3s and knit a little square or two for Oliver. Oh (this is another good part), for every square you send, they put your name in for a chance to win. Cool, huh? You can also follow the links in Kay's blog entry to purchase raffle tickets without making squares. Squares need to be sent to Kay by the end of November; email her for the address. All the info is in her blog entry. (I have got to learn how to link things.)
It was such a beautiful sunny day it was difficult to focus on yarn-y things, especially since DH filled the house with the wonderful smells of Roasted Butternut Squash soup and Chocolate layer cake. Mmm. And he even washed all the pots and pans. He is truly a treasure. I did manage to get a little done between stirring his soup and licking the beaters. Hey, since the kids are all grown and gone somebody's got to do it! I'm anxious to see how the crocheted tote felts. I intended to use only the Sensations Marvel from JoAnn's but the thick & thin texture of it didn't work up the way I had hoped, so I picked up a skein of Cascade 220 in Black and am carrying them together. Makes a world of difference and it kind of looks like stained glass. Can't wait to see the result. The bias scarf's a nice relaxing project I can work on while sitting in Patti's Yarn Shop's kitchen listening to Dorothy (76) and Iris (91) debate the merits of various yarns, patterns and needles. An afternoon there is a real education!
Finis! I took my needles in hand and finished the second glove. Woohoo!
Ann was home the last few days and it was absolutely fantastic to have another knitter in the house. We had a whirlwind 2 days trolling all the yarn shops in town and digging through my stash of yarn and patterns. Our Christmas gift stashes are now full to overflowing with ideas and nice wool yarn we'd never have bought if it hadn't been on clearan
ce. We love clearance bins! I had gotten some Lion Brand Cashmere Blend when Ben Franklin went out of business but wasn't sure what I'd make with it. Then I bought One Skein with my Jo-Ann's coupon, paged through it and I knew.
Gloves.
Gloves with a cabled cuff and real fingers. I had never used dpns before but Ann has made socks so I figured she could teach me. We will draw a veil over the awkward beginning of my adventure with dpns, and I'm still not at all sure I could start a project on my own, but suffice to say that Ann's patience is limitless. By the end of Friday's knitting we had a cuff, hand & thumb gusset. I have a few, let's just call them, freeform areas in my honeycomb cables, but as my grandpa used to say, a man running for his life will never notice. We spent Saturday, off
and on, knitting tiny little tubes, one by one, and by bedtime on Saturday we each had one glove! Too cool. So much fun sitting knitting, talking, and laughing with my daughter. We did good.
