Happy Birthday To Us!

Hey Y'all,
Happy Almost Spring! Also, Happy Birthday to Us! Just dawned on me that this is the tenth year of Knitting and Yoga Adventures. That's a whole lot of relaxing knitting retreats, considering Lisa has hosted jaunts to numerous places, including Italy, Vermont, and Maine. This year, the Vermont trip is all full (though you can get on the waiting list over at the registration page.) We do have SIX SPACES LEFT for the Monhegan Island Retreat which happens September 13-19, 2015. You can snap up one of those spots at the Monhegan registration page.

As you can see above, the never ending sweater project I've been telling you about is, literally, taking shape. If you missed my earlier installments, I'm working on an Adult Baby Surprise Jacket from an Elizabeth Zimmermann pattern. It is at times incredibly tedious-- all garter stitch, size 3 needles. It is also at times incredibly mysterious-- many times I've thought Is this really going to work? Because it's knit in one piece, but very different from a top down sweater. I'm still not convinced that the sleeves will be wide enough but what choice have I but to carry on? Plus, can you say BLOCK THE HECK OUT OF IT. I have put so many hours into this one I will find a way to make it fit, even if that means wearing SPANX on my upper arms.

Though I swore a couple of months ago, when I picked that sweater back up after putting it down many times, that I would work on nothing else until I finished it, alas-- along came an irresistible request. I work in a tattoo shop and one of the artists brought me the above picture. He wondered if I might make something similar for a little friend of his. How could I say no? I'm figuring out the pattern as I go. On the one hand, I feel very pleased that I have a solid idea of how to make all the pieces. On the other hand, I got a nice reminder about the necessity of prototypes when it dawned on me yesterday that I had done way too many increase rows on the ball part, and that if I kept going I would wind up with a basketball sized toy, when what I really want is something much smaller. And so, back to the drawing board. But now that I know what I'm doing, I think I can knock this out in a couple of days.

In other news I'm trying to come up with a name for that feeling you feel when you see something someone else has knitted and it knocks the wind out of you. The above two sweaters were made by my yoga teacher years ago. She actually (gasp!) stopped knitting. I don't know why. Maybe because once you hit the skill level needed to make such masterpieces there's nowhere else to go? That theory has holes in it, I know. But supposing it were true, I can totally relax-- I could knit every day for the rest of my life and not manage such exquisite detail work. And I swear, as I held these sweaters in my hands, my breathing pattern really did change. I had this palpable reaction-- awe, excitement, disbelief. What should we call this feeling? WOOLBERGASTED? Nah. Need to work on that.

And now, just for fun, a picture of me in this great shirt I got at TESS in Portland during our yarn crawl back to the airport after our wonderful week of island knitting.

Hope y'all are thawing out and warming up!
Until next time,
Spike