Back to Knitting

Thank you all for your concern and good wishes for my parents. My father gets to go home today (after the better part of four weeks in the hospital!). My mother is holding steady in the health care center. I am knitting again. Here's a photo I took of them on my father's 89th birthday last February (I knitted that sweater for him in 1980 and he still wears it almost every day in the winter).

I spent last weekend at the Knitter’s Review Knitting Retreat (in western MA), hosted by the Clara Parkes herself. I taught a morning class on cast-on techniques, and afternoon class on bind-off techniques, and another morning class on the mathematics of knitting (which really should have been named “Intro to Sweater Design”). I had been nervous because I hadn’t spent much time prepping for the classes, but they went well. I did some serious yarn shopping, too. There were booths for Quince & Company, Foxfire Fiber, String Theory, Spirit Trails, Briar Rose, and Kathryn Alexander yarns. I am keeping a positive outlook that my parents will stay healthy and let myself get yarn to make several pairs of socks as well as three (3!) sweaters.

Now, I am in Portland, Maine, where I’m staying with Pam Allen, the Queen of Quince. This morning I got to see my purple scarf photographed (by Carrie Bostik Hoge). It is knitted with Tern, a wool-silk blend, and will be available on the Quince & Co website as soon as it gets tech edited.

Then I got to tour the warehouse. Just look at all those bags and bags and boxes and boxes of yarn. Talk about heavenly fumes!

I had so many ideas of what to do with the yarn that I agreed to knit a new project for Quince every four to six weeks.

Here’s the tentative list of what I plan to knit in the next year:

1.     Not-Very-Lacy Shawl out of Tern

2.     Textured Cap out of Lark or Osprey

3.     Girly Baby Sweater out of Tern

4.     Baby Socks out of Tern

5.     House Socks out of Puffin

6.     Child’s Chunky Sweater out of Puffin

7.     Baby Sweater out of Chickadee

8.     Cabled Socks out of Chickadee

9.     Cabled Hand Warmers out of Lark

10.  Cowl with Decorative CO and BO out of Tern

11.  Reversible Scarf out of Lark

Now that I’ve announced all these projects, I'll feel compelled to finish them. I’ll keep you posted as I make progress, one project at a time.