The Lady Sandra is begun

The Lady Sandra, you ask? What or who is that? She (most definitely a she) is close kin to the Lady Eleanor Entrelac Stole from ScarfStyle. As you may guess, she is destined for a person named Sandra. And on Tuesday of last week, we went yarn shopping for The Perfect Yarn for her. It's important to have a perfect yarn when one is thinking of making over 250 little knit rectangles, using a technique that one was fairly certain one would never do again after completing a required swatch. Perfect Yarn goes a long way towards overcoming attachment disorders involving knitting techniques. Without Perfect Yarn, there is no incentive to pick up the project. But with it --- ah, that's another story. So, on the way home from entering some items in the Minnesota State Fair, we stopped at Borealis Yarns. We never made it to the second yarn store in the area. Why bother? We hit the jackpot.

Our next stop was HalfPrice Books, and a good time was had by all there as well. My son found not one, but TWO Asterix books, and spoke on their educational value so convincingly that they were purchased not as comics, but as Historical Fiction. I also received a KnitPicks order in the mail, and promptly cast on for the Brioche Cap with Telemark. Unfortunately, I can't imagine getting the projected gauge for the project with Telemark (at least in blue ... sometimes blue yarns are thicker than any other color in a given style), so when I'd gotten far enough into the pattern to realize it was going to not fit a 1-2 year old, as projected, but someone with a 24" head circumference ... it was quietly frogged. All is not lost, though. I have two samples of Telemark, and every expectation that I will make several things from it in the future.

I also have yarn for my TEA COZY! I was all set to cast on for it on Wednesday, but came up against two problems. First, my ball winder was a dozen miles away and the yarn was in hanks. And second, it called for size 13 dpns. Size 13 British, I have. Size 13 US, I don't. So I set that aside for another day. But at least I have the yarn! And yarn for a pair of merino/silk socks, and yarn to swatch for a cardigan from the latest Interweave Knits, and yarn for another pair of socks, and yarn for some more hats, and and and.

Hats, you know, can be a rewarding thing to make. Worked in worsted, they don't take long. And made for children, they're small. And if you saw some children wearing woolen hats in August, riding their bikes back and forth in the driveway, with an embarassed-looking father watching in perplexity ... that would be the hats I made. One hat stayed on through bathtime, even. Now that's appreciation.

And to leave you with something to appreciate ... I leave you with the beginnings of the Lady Sandra, worked in Noro Silk Garden color 239.