Odds and Ends

Hi everyone. Thanks so much for all the encouragement and nice comments on my projects. It means so much to me to hear from you.

Sadly the new felted BOC is also too big. Grrr. I will try felting it some more and maybe using a slightly smaller item to block it. That hat just doesn't want to shrink in it's girth. It looks kickin' though.

The workshop I attended yesterday was lead by Debbie Abrahams. It was a lot of fun and she's a very nice lady. It was very free form. We all picked a square from her book to work on. Basically everyone chose to work in a technique that was new to them. There was a brand new knitter working on a very nice one-color textured square called Fisherman's Net. Several people were working in intarsia for the first time. Many were trying beading. I chose to try cables. I did a little homework the night before and studied Wendy's instructions for cabling without a cable needle and was actually able to teach it to Debbie! She also told us a bit about her work as a designer and as a Rowan design consultant. Her mother, who worked on many of the pieces from the book--apparently she seamed all the afghans in the book--, is traveling with her on the trip. She also produces all the beautiful buttons that are used in the patterns. They are gorgeous handmade earthenware. It was a very nice day. She is headed to the San Francisco area in the next few days. Her tour schedule is here.

I started swatching the Go-Everywhere-Go-With-Everything Cardigan the other night. I don't have the right size needle in circulars and boy! I now hate using straight needles. Especially really long, crappy, aluminum straight needles. I also need to go get a pair of needles to finish the second square I started at Debbie's class. A woman in class was nice enough to let me borrow hers during class. I still want to finish the square I started yesterday too. Cabling is so much fun.

It's been a long day so I'll be signing off now.