weekend warriors

Sunday morning practice for the Knitting Olympics Synchronized Garter trials.

In case you're coming in on this mighty miter undertaking late, or have lost recall of our ridiculously drawn out project, my sister and I are in the final throes of our collaborative throw.

We finished sewing the squares into larger squares, then into strips of larger squares. We were just about to join two halves Sunday morning when Lulu figured we could knit edges simultaneously before joining them, and having to shuttle the whole project back & forth for the long sides, when only one person can knit on them at a time. Clever, eh?
We're cautiously optimistic that this will be a Valentines Day gift. Meanwhile, we're still considering tube dress potential.

brit lit

Let's open with some Shakepeare
...there lies more peril in thine eye ,Than twenty of their swords.
Romeo and Juliet. ACT II Scene 2.

For a week, mine eye was imperiling poor Juliet. I tried her on . She was all wrong. A total rip out required. With no heart at that moment , I put her back in her bag. The next day: Hark! Juliet was hanging just fine in the important places. By the following dawn, in utter ambivalence over fit , I decided I was definitely going to need more yarn to finish at a flattering length.

A few phone calls and another try-on: well, with some tugging during blocking, should be plenty of yarn left , ahem, as you can see. Since no more of this color is at the LYS. Juliet was politely invited to take a beauty nap for a few days.

I've scrutinized all of the Juliets over on Ravelry - and that's MANY- sussing out what is wrong, fit-wise, with the unflattering ones. I may have hit every one of those Don't-Dos. I didn't take into account the amount of vertical stretch that was going to happen once the "skirt" of the pattern was added , weight-wise, to the garter stitch top. When the top ends as an empire waist, just under the boobage to get technical, it looks stylish. When the garter stitch area extends to just above your waist, you've gone granny. With some coaching, I'm going to block unfinished and do garter surgery.

While I let myself wander in a haze of indecision over Juliet's fate, I knit this Noro striped hat.

Same as last time , yarn & repeats wise, except it's is a 2x2 rib, 88 stitches on size 7 needles. For Dave, who never gets anything new finished for him.

I declared this the year of making some things for Dave. I think that's vague enough to leave me room for success. Right?

split personality

Check it out! The Shear Spirit blog. I'm going to try not to cross-post much. Blogging duties shared with Joan, my co-author , who is an honest-to-goodness award winning writer , so expect a notch up in the verbage.
High on my accomplishment list for 2007 is bullying gently leading Joan back to knitting, so there'll be plenty of that. Not sure where else we're going yet with it but I have approximately gajillion photos that couldn't fit in the book that I'm dying to share, and we'll be posting bonus patterns once the book is out. Stop by and say hey.

ps.the option to change fonts has mysteriously disappeared from my Blogger compose window! yikes, serifs!

hoping robert frost* was right

The Tree of Warmth is in business at the local soup kitchen/commmunity services center.

Calling it the Fence of Warmth doesn't have that same, you know, fuzzy glow, does it? When it dawned on us we didn't have the right kind of tree, or any kind of tree for that matter, it was zippo degrees out. A hike to find one was not on the the to-do list, but a sprint around the yard yielded this scrawny branch and a section of fence. Apply duct tape liberally and- walla! Anyway, its inherent fenciness is eclipsed by the knits. Do you see some of the beautiful work sent to us?

Much oohing and aaahhing as we set up. If you look carefully you'll see a Cherry Garcia neck tube that I covet admire. It was knit by KT who is in the middle of moving across the country but somehow found time. wow. Some of the knits, especially kid size, were put aside by the director for Tuesday nights, when a specific group of families with children come for dinner and stories at the facility. So even if you're not glimpsing your contributions, don't think it isn't warming someone by now!
* ".....He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors." Read the whole poem here.