Debra, Stephanie, Ken & Snow Thing

I have not forgotten about you or your sweater Debra! Debra is one of my clients who is a great starter who has discovered that I am (among other things) a finisher. I took her most recent offering (recent here meaning "within the last 6 months") and set to it. I sewed in the ends on the 2 sleeves & back that she had knit. I just need to do the back neck shaping, 1 sleeve top shaping, 2 fronts & assemble. But I have started & that is half the battle won.

I made my way down to hear Stephanie speak at the Textile Museum tonight and it was definitely worth the trip. She is an unpretentious speaker who engages her audience with knitting stories that make us laugh & cry because they have happened to us all. Then it was on to the book signing. Stephanie was quite taken with the Post-its that I used in the 1st book. The red ones are for "lessons" that I found touched a personal chord or made me cry from laughing. The blue ones were just plain ole' funny. I need to confess here that I have a weakness for office supplies that very nearly rivals my yearning for yarn. The pens, Post-it Notes, desk accessories ... is it getting warm in here? Thanks Ada for joining me & being my Photographer du jour.

While Stephanie was speaking, my attention kept wandering to a man knitting in front of me. He was wearing a lovely aran sweater and was knitting on another fine gauge aran. It was wonderful - fine cables, twisted sts - but it seemed narrow for a sweater piece. So when Ada & I saw him as we were leaving I took the opportunity to introduce ourselves and ask about it. It is indeed a sweater back - a Starmore (I guessed right!). Ken said that it is a superwash wool and he found that it relaxed quite a bit when washed. That and the heavy cabling made it seem narrower than it will end up being after blocking.

It had been snowing steadinly in Angus since I had left - big fluffy flakes. When I turned into our driveway, I saw a couple of handles poking out of the snow. "Great - they started shoveling then left the shovels out!! 10:20 at night ... GDI - I'm going to have to climb in there, get them out ..." When I got out of the van I noticed that the handles looked kind of rough to be shovel handles. Okay, it's been a long day and even with a couple of Starbucks' Red Eyes in me I was a little slow. It turns out that Amanda dragged Stephanie (the babysitter) outside to make a snowman. Out of the dry fluffly snow. Well, it has arms and is made out of snow. They had a lot of fun and it was a good for a great laugh.