Memorial Day Musings

I spent the past week in the hospital with my son while he received his Week #22 chemo treatment (out of 50 - almost 1/2 way!). While I was there, one of the other moms and I were trading book titles. She is reading Like Water for Chocolate. And she was telling me how much she's been enjoying that.

I've been knitting and knitting on my Tricot sweater. I've finished the front and the back, and I've started on the 1st sleeve. I wanted to knit the sleeves at the same time, but I went off to JoAnn's to find another skein of Vanilla CottonEase, and they didn't have any! Can you believe that? While @ the hospital, I drove to a Michaels & a Hancock Fabrics nearby, and they didn't have any, either! This particular Michaels said they were even discontinuing CottonEase for more of the "fashion" yarns. I said, "You can only knit so much with fashion yarns. CottonEase is such a popular choice for so many things. Why would you discontinue it?" The clerk just shook her head. She was bit baffled, too.

So, in my travels, I picked up some pink CottonEase at the Hancock Fabrics I stopped at to knit this for my daughter. I also got some UV Beads, which I intend to incorporate into the neckline of the tank. My daughter is ecstatic. :-)

Hmmm ... what else. I started to make a felted tote using two different patterns and some Patons wool, but I've ripped both patterns out about 3 or 4 times. Because the Patons is worsted weight, and both patterns call for bulky, I was knitting w/ two strands at once. It felt very uncomfortable, and my gauge came out way too tight. I guess I need to practice attaining gauge more. I feel like I'm knitting fairly loosely, but I'm still coming up with a stitch an inch too many!

While at the hospital, I was feeling quite stir crazy after a few days and needed a change of scenery from my sweater. So, I knit one of Grandma's favorite dischcloths. I was thrilled with this pattern. I love the dishcloth patterns where you only cast on a few stitches and then grow it using increases. They just seem to go so fast, and this one turned out particularly well -- except for the ending corner. I was basically knitting in the dark w/ my little booklight as the only light in the room. I somehow managed to let my needle slide out of all the stitches when I was down to about 6 stitches. I had a terrible time getting back into the pattern at that point, and I ended up with a little tab-like corner. Oh well. It'll still wash the dishes!

I also started this towel which I'm actually knitting to be a square cloth for our kitchen table. I'm using Sugar 'n Cream Buttercream. It's turning out quite nicely, but it looks really different from the pattern picture.

Well, the kids are finally up after sleeping in this morning, and my husband is back from his morning motorcycle tour. So, I should get off here and go fix/eat breakfast! Hopefully, I'll be able to get the camera out soon and post some pictures of what I'm working on.

I hope everyone has a terrific Memorial Day!