I wasn’t feeling well yesterday, girl pains, and spent a fair part of the day lying on the couch knitting. Before the girl pains arrived, I decided to do some more spinning, I now have just a tiny bit of fiber left to spin. I was about to spin enough to get a small 6 yard hank. I plied the yarn I spun yesterday with some yarn that I made in August 2003. I will post my photos soon.

While on the couch, I worked on the lace scarf that I started the other day (I now have 9 inches completed), worked a bit of the turtleneck for Pagan, worked two rows of the Barbara Shawl.

Last night, we were both in the mood to once again watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Can you tell we love this film? Just a bit. :) In the opening scenes Joel (Jim Carrey) is wearing a green ribbed hat, which made me think, I should start Bryan’s ribbed hat. So I cast on my stitches and off I went. It’s a slip-stitch rib and is moving along very slowly. I am using Cascade 200 and I’ve doubled it. I realized about six rows into it that it’s taking a lot of yarn. I can’t decide if I should rip it out and start over with a single strand of yarn or I should just buy another hank of yarn. I might just end up starting over.

Today, I was still not feeling 100%, so I read and worked on my website. I redid the main knitting page and updated my knitting library page. I’m hoping to work on my literature and music pages this week.

There was once a company in the northern suburbs of Chicago where a knitting teacher worked. She needed to buy yarn and needles for one of her classes and asked if anyone wanted to go with her during lunch. One day, a coworker said she wanted to go and decided she wanted to learn to knit. After three weeks of knitting, she had completed a scarf. Another coworker, who had learned to knit as a child, started bringing her knitting with her to work. The knitting teacher and two coworkers would sit at lunch and knit. The three would take their knitting to their afternoon coffee break. The knitting teacher knew she had succeeded when the new knitter said, “I don’t want to work, I just want to knit.”

Then two more coworkers decided they wanted to learn, so the knitting teacher took them to the yarn store to buy needles and yarn. The soon-to-be students loved feeling all of the yarns at the yarn store and bought some nice merino wool for their first scarves. The two soon-to-be students waited anxiously until the afternoon coffee break to learn how to do this amazing thing called knitting. The afternoon coffee break is now half an hour away and the soon-to-be knitters are getting very anxious. The knitting teacher is so excited that her coworkers are so excited about knitting. Knitting fever is certainly sweeping through the department.
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I know it’s a long day when I have a ton to do and I can’t concentrate because I want to be working on a lace scarf that I started yesterday.

I have photos to post of my pathetic yarn that I spun. The coworkers weren’t as impressed as Bryan, but they are used to the yarn at the yarn store. I have yarn only a mother could love, me being the mother, of course. It’s not beautiful but it’s my first two small hanks of yarn and I love them dearly. I’m sure that once I get more practice in spinning that I’ll look at these two hanks, which will be part of a hat brim, as most new knitters look at their first practice swatches.

Bryan and I went out for dinner last night and I ate entirely too much spicy food – it was wonderful Indian food from our favorite restaurant, Chowpatti Vegetarian Restaurant, where we had our first date. So because my stomach wasn’t very happy with my overindulgence, I stayed home the morning from work. While I was home, I was very productive – finished the Tartelette scarf, started a new scarf that’s lacy and spun some yarn. I got out my drop spindle that I haven’t touched in a year and a half and spun some yarn. It was fun, but it was like trying to remember what color hair my third grade teacher had, I was struggling and had to get out my book, which didn’t seem to help. I found out from a few online sources that I was doing it right all along. I tried to ply the yarn that I had spun about a year and a half ago and the yarn I spun this morning, and they didn’t ply the way that I remember them doing when we did in class at Stitches MW 2003. Bryan is bringing home a spinning book for me, so I’ll see if it has more info than the book I have. I may have to contact my friend, Dawn, for some pointers. I haven’t seen her since a year ago this past October and we’ve mentioned getting together, it just never seems to happen. I would love to be able to get a spinning wheel and learn how to spin on it, but we’re saving money like crazy to go back to school.

The Pagan sweater’s turtleneck only has two rows. Now that the sweater is done, I’m having a hard time making myself knit the turtleneck because it’s all purl in the round for 18 or so centimeters. Ugh.

The girls at work now all want to learn how to knit. I started one and two more want to learn, so we’re going on a yarn store field trip tomorrow.

I’m off to teach again tonight. They are learning how to increase tonight. I’m anxious to see how far they are on their scarves. This class has two more sessions left after tonight. My Tuesday class went well, I had some students struggling, but I think they will all be fine. I’ve realized how much I dislike aluminum needles and Red Heart yarn for beginners. One woman, who was really struggling, asked if she could buy some yarn and needles from me, once she did she really got it.

I was just quickly doing some math to figure out where I am, as far as, the progress on the Barbara Shawl goes. All of this time I figured I was about 20% finished. Nope, according to my trusty calculator and my excellent counting abilities, I am in fact about 65% of the way through. I guess I couldn’t count the other nights I’ve worked on it, hence, my tendency for mistakes. So I currently have 302 stitches on the needles and have four more sets of diamonds to go, which are 20 rows each with increases each knit row. When finished I will have 462 stitches on my needles (can’t wait for that casting off session). That gives me hope. I am not counting the edging at the bottom of the shawl in my calculations, so I may be a few percentage points off.

I’m not going to be working on the shawl forever and I may one day get to wear it. To think, when I started it, I assumed it would only take me about four months to knit. What the heck was I thinking?

I’ve now had two people ask me where to find the Hobo pattern. It’s in Jaeger Magazine 5 (JM05). I’m knitting it with “Bollicina”
on size 3 circular Inox aluminum needles, so it’s taking me a while. I have about 42.5 cm knit on the body and need to go to 60 cm across. I’m trying to work on it a little bit every week, but with three to four rows per centimeter, it’s very slow going. It is a fun sweater to knit and the yarn is fabulous – 65% cashmere, 35% silk, it feels like heaven in yarn. :)

I got home late from work last night and really wanted to work on the Barbara Shawl, so I did. It’s amazing how many fewer mistakes that I make when the tv is off. And the biggest advantage to not watching tv while working on the Barbara Shawl is that I can do six rows in two hours, as opposed to, four rows in two hours with the tv on. I was very proud of myself, I managed to finish another set of diamonds down the back. With 20 rows per diamond and four more sets to go, that’s 80 rows, plus each right-side row increases the number of stitches by four and at an average of three rows per hour (at current stitch numbers), I have at least another 27 hours worth of work. If I work on at least two rows a week, I could have the shawl finished in a year. It’s possible, but I’m not sure it will happen. I’m just resigned to the fact that I have another year on it, if not two or three.

After Bryan came home, I worked four rows of Hobo. It’s coming along slowly, but I’m sure it has just as much work left on it as the Barbara Shawl does.

Teaching again tonight. It’s the first class of the session, so it will be a tiring and fun night. :)

I saw this on Theresa’s blog and just had to add it to mine because it’s so cool.

The residents of a nursing home in Tasmania knit themselves a 1950s room.