The Great Finish

Happy Monday to All-

I am happy to report that I accomplished 2 great finishes this week. I completely finished off the Peacock baby sweater set. The sweater went together well and even the sleeves which I had doubts about fit well with the sweater. I had quite a bit of craziness this week at work which cut down on my knitting time drastically but I still managed to finish knitting the last sleeve on Friday and blocked them Friday night. I ended up working 7 hours Saturday but I still came home and stitched the sleeves onto the body. I took a big stab in the dark and cast on 110 stitches on DPN's for a hat. I knit the brim in the solid purple 1x1 rib and then switched to the striping yarn for the rest of the hat. I was able to use the lace pattern from the sweater and kept trying it on the baby doll to decide when to do decreases. I am amazed that it came out well and looks great with the sweater. I went shopping on Saturday night and found a little sleeper that went nicely with the set and it rounded out my present well. I found the perfect little gift bag to package it all up in. It has a little pea pod made with sewing buttons on the front with the words "Sweet Pea" which is perfect for this recipient since that is her pet name for the new baby. Just to remind myself-the self striping yarn was Opal sock yarn and the solid was Jawoll. I knit it on size 3 needles switching to 2's to do the button bands. It took about 2 weeks of spare time knitting to get it finished. I think the newborn size should fit a newborn fairly well. The designer must have had real kids to try the patterns on!!

My other finish of the week was reading "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" In fact I just finished. I could not start until last night when I got home from OKC about 7. I read until midnight which got me about 1/2 way. Today I had some stuff that had to be done and I finally got to read about 6. I finished just a few minutes ago and it is just starting to sink in that the Harry Potter experience is now over forever. Will there ever be a series of books that cause as much excitement? Or encourage kids to want to read? Even Lord of the Rings or Chronicles of Narnia ever caused the same furor, probably only because of when in time they were released. Anyway I plan on rereading them all once I retire so I can enjoy them in closer sequence than when I read them before.

I did buy some things recently that I have to talk about. Last week I went to Guthrie and bought a copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman's "The Opinionated Knitter" I finally got some time to really read it this weekend and I was completely blown away by EZ!! She is my idol. Not only because she was a genius knitter but she lived her life in a way that I only wish I could. The stories she tells in this book make me realize that she was up there with the likes of Amelia Earhart and Florence Nightengale. She was not afraid of anything and forged ahead where no woman had gone before. She loved her husband, children, pets and her craft of knitting. And she wanted others to love it too. I would recommend this book to anyone who knits not just for the patterns but for the wisdom she imparts. I also bought some yarn to make the baby suprise jacket that is in the book. It is a Colinette hand dyed in a DK weight. I have some socks to finish up but by next weekend I ought to be able to get started. I am anxious to see how this mysterious jacket knits up with this beautiful hand dyed yarn.

Well I am tired from to much reading and not enough weekend. So until next time.....