My Tale of Woe, and a Great Weekend

I'm back from Milwaukee. And I've knitted four complete pieces of Klaralund, and I've just spent the day sewing up a sweater. But it wasn't Klara. Because I left the first body piece, the one you see partially completed below, on the plane. Yes, that's right. Sigh. I was being totally OCD and looking to see if the stripes were matching up, even though I wasn't trying to control it (really! I swear!). I had it in my lap, and as the flight went on, it kind of moved off to the side, and then, I guess, got wedged in the side. I got into a nice conversation with the person next to me, even though I rarely chat with strangers on planes, and that distracted me further. So when I got up to get off the plane, I LEFT IT ON THE SEAT. I didn't realize it was gone until I was boarding my next flight, and it was on the other end of the airport, which was literally about a mile away, so there was no way to go back. The airline's lost items person was unsympathetic, and said that if my name wasn't on it, the chances were basically nil. Even if they do find it, I have to go back to my airport, an hour away, to pick it up as they refuse to mail it (apparently other airlines will mail things--this is the first time I've flown Northwest in almost 10 years, and I was not impressed with their sympathy or interest in helping me). Big sigh. And I thought my problem would be security! In fact, the inspectors were very nice and the woman was very concerned about damaging my knitting when she hand-searched my bag. Little did she know I would do more harm myself!

I've mostly gotten over it. I've finished the other body piece, and I cast on for the, well, third, body piece, and even though I have a full ball of yarn to work with, I am just taking a break from it. Why is it that practically everything I knit lately (or maybe forever) has some sort of snafu? My Haiku debacle where I didn't spin consistently and the sides of the garment were completely inconsistent. Overfelting the fuzzy feet. Now this. Sigh.

Well, lemonade, and all that. I found a home for the fuzzy feet. Turns out they weren't even a 7, they were a SIX. So they were too small for Aileen, but my friend Sue fit into them great, and she was psyched. We had a sort of a lesbian-mom Cinderella session at Aileen's Sukkot party, and the fulled slipper fit on Sue's feet. Sue's partner, Leigh, has just gone through a scary cervical cancer incident, which involved a recent hysterectomy (like SIL, she is in her early 40's, sigh). She's laid up and going crazy. I was wondering if she'd like to learn to knit, but she's one of these people who already knows how to do, like, everything, so I wasn't sure if she didn't already know how. Well, she doesn't, and she was very interested in the whole felting concept, so at naptime tomorrow I'm headed to Webs to pick out an easy first project for her and a book. I've never read that Stitch n Bitch book, but it has gotten a lot of people started, and I think it has some beginner felted projects in it, right? Well, it's between that and The Knit Stitch, which I have and have learned a lot from as a knitter of 20 years.

In other news, I went to my first meeting of the Nutmeg Spinner's Guild, which was great. There was a presentation from Still River Mill about their mini mill business. I had kind of tossed out my yarn manufacturing idea due to my lack of interest in the actual manufacturing piece of it, but based on what they said, we might be a great team. I had to leave after two hours (of a 6-hour meeting, boo hoo), so I didn't get to talk with them, but I need to finish up the freelance project I'm working on (almost done!), then do a little research on my end, and if it all looks promising I'll see if I can talk to them about working together. I think it might be a great deal all around.

The guild seems great. I generally found the people to be friendly, a nice mix of experienced folks and beginners, and a lot of knitting content. Oddly, when I went to a local spinning group, many of the people there didn't know how to knit or were barely beginners at it. This group did "show and tell" at the beginning and had some great stuff, both mill and handspun. That was great to see, since I felt like I could learn some stuff about knitting as well as spinning, and I prefer to keep the border between the two crafts rather fluid, as they should be!

One woman had knitted a vest from Debbie New's book Unexpected Knitting. I had heard of this book after reading about her "better mousetrap" socks in Interweave Knits. The Guild has a GREAT library, and I checked that one out, and I can keep it until the next meeting, in December. It's almost as cool as the Semester-long checkout I get at the college where I work! Anyway, the book is just fascinating. I've been reading a lot of knitting books lately, and actually it's getting frustrating because I don't have time to try all these patterns. Many of the patterns in New's book are over my head as a knitter, but it really makes me think about design, construction, and knitting, and makes me think of what I can work up to. I don't think I'm too far away from doing these, but it is definitely a case of breaking out of my "two body pieces and two sleeves" thinking. I may try out a pattern or two, certainly the mousetrap socks. I was even wondering how they'd do felted. Hmmm.

In other news, I finished Eleanor's Haiku, FINALLY, except for the buttons/fasteners. It's my first finished handspun sweater! Yay me! I've already got a bobbin full of yarn for Henry's semi-matching Einstein sweater. So I'm feeling on a roll.

Jenifer is sending me another ball of Silk Garden so I can finish Klara, so I'll work on that when it arrives. No promises, but I do hope to be wearing it by the end of the week. We'll see. If things go well this week and I don't have to work late Thursday, maybe I'll hit the knitting night at Webs.

That's probably enough silliness. It's late, and I need to sleep so I can keep up with the short people tomorrow. It's amazing how fast they can go on those little legs, LOL.

Oh, one more thing. I'm part of the RAOK ring now! How cool. I have a lot more blogs to read, though. Thanks for the sweet comments, and the card... I've already sent a birthday card to someone on the list. This is fun! I'm generally a pretty cynical type, but I do love the grace in RAOKs. I think we all need to remember more how much kindness there is in the world. Sometimes it's easy to forget.

Blogging and the online knitting world have really pushed my limits in knitting, and I feel like I've learned more in the last few months online than I have in a long time. I've been doing lots of garter stitch, but I'm really improving my techniques and understanding. Very cool.

Okay, really bedtime. It's one o'clock in the morning!