I've always liked the color red...

... I just never planned to own a red car. I knew I wanted low maintenance, reliability, longevity, and at least the features I had in my Jetta. My decision was to buy a used Lexus. The color of the best maintained car with the lowest mileage in my price range was "Pearl Cinnabar." The purchase on Friday took all day, thanks to the seller not having the required originals for transfer of the title, and thanks to my distracted error in locking the key to George's car in his trunk so we had to make a round trip from Bellevue to Kenmore and back in Friday afternoon traffic. The dust has settled, the car is finally in my driveway, and I like red more than ever!

I looked forward all that week to knitting at Naomi's, and took the opportunity to go back to my Forest Canopy shawl. I need to be focused when I work on it, even with a lifeline, or I just make too many errors. I took a break from it while I was on the car mission and knit two scarves from Ellen's Mermaid design - one with Rowan's Damask linen yarn, and the other with a sort of chenille blend. They were good practice for my beginning lace knitting and good opportunities to try two different weights of yarn. Blocking was the other technique I practiced; a wet block for the Damask and a dry block for the chenille. The timing was perfect since I've been reading about blocking in the Interweave newsletter. The photo doesn't show the pattern very well - suffice it to say that I'm ready to try the Mermaid shawl with my Sea Silk. As soon as I finish the Forest Canopy shawl.

Meanwhile, I'm getting ready for a sweater project and having to decide which to tackle first between the Rowan Classic Lynton cardigan with Cotton Jeans yarn, or Ruth's Kauni cardigan. I've been swatching the Cotton Jeans, and it looks like I'll be using US 5 instead of 7 due to my "relaxed" knitting. (I don't want to refer to myself as a "loose knitter" do I?) At Rebecca's class at Village on Thursday, I'm planning to begin swatching the Kauni yarn for my first attempt at Fair Isle since college. Well, the Lynton will be fun, and the Kauni will be challenging!

The end of my Jetta era...

Thank you, Naomi and Jamie for your enthusiastic comments - being a novice blogger, it's fun to get your response and encouragement is a good thing! Since my last posting, I've been in the throes of choosing a used car to buy, and selling my beloved VW 2000 Jetta GLX. Several days on craigslist, and the Jetta is being sold next week to Daniel, a Microsofty (softie?) from Ethiopia, who I like very much and I think he will enjoy the heck out of my fun car.

I will continue driving George's "grampa car", his gold Buick Century, until next Friday, when I get to complete the purchase of my 1998 Lexus GS300. I was mulling over whether this was the car I wanted when the seller called to tell me he was going on vacation and wouldn't be back until July 26th. I couldn't meet up with him that day because I'll be at Stitch'n'Pitch, so we'll do all the paper work on Friday. This will be a good week!

As promised, the next photo entry of my knitting is the pair of socks I knitted with Naomi's guidance. First I had to shop for yarn (and ended up buying yarn for three different pairs of socks), then needles. I hopefully bought 2's and 1's in circular and knit my swatches, then I bought the

Addi 0's I've been using for every pair of socks since. I'm now working on my 4th pair since beginning, and my gauge is standing solid. This is On-Line yarn, and it was great to knit with. I did have some gapping at the top of the gusset on the first sock, but after reading Charlene Schurch's hint in Sensational Knitted Socks, I haven't had a gusset-gap since.

Next time I'll share a couple of my aran baby sweaters. The pattern is from a German knitting book, and I've knitted several variations over the years. I knitted three of them while I was working on my socks so I could begin to get my knitting chops back to where they had been.

In closing, and by request, here's a photo of George at a motocross race in Washougal, WA. As you can see, Maverick is not intimidated by a motocross jock. And that motocross jock isn't such a tough guy!

A very good place to start

My first posting, and I'm a little bit speechless.





First, I'm planning to share my knitting projects. In fact that's the whole reason I was inspired to start a blog. Although I learned to knit as a child, I have put down my needles for years at a time. Now it seems like precious time lost, and I feel the urge to catch up. Of course, I'll never catch up the way I continue to buy yarn without regard for how much yarn I already have. The good news is that what's different now is that I'm becoming part of a community of knitters so that the things that caused me to stop knitting in the past are no longer likely. The other good news is that having so much yarn is just another step to my charter membership in the knitting community.


I may also mention George (my "significant other" for the past 11 years) at times, because he's just as important to me as knitting - just like I'm just as important to him as his vintage motorcycles. I won't say how many he has, but I do wonder what the motorcycle equivalent of a yarn stash would be called.

My industrious friend, Naomi, inspired me to return to knitting with a passion, and has shown me more than a few things. Besides starting me with my first pair of socks ever, she showed me how to post a photo. My first attempt to post a photo, made on my own, is out there in cyber-space somewhere, and I don't know how to go get it.

So instead, I thought I'd post my good dog's adoption photo. This is what I saw on PetFinder when I called George and told him "You have to see this boy!" Maverick came with his name and was about a year old when he came home to us in March of 2005. He's a Boxer-lab mix and is the best dog ever! As everyone who has adopted a critter knows, he has issues, but now all he really wants to do is hang out with his people. And chase the ball. And go for walks. And eat.


I've been taking photos of my knitting and will add one each post until I catch up to what's finished so far. It shouldn't take long! I'm relearning things I've done, trying things for the first time, and doing a lot of tearing out and starting over. I guess there's nothing wrong with that!