My Mystery Skein Swap Project Revealed!

Now that my Mystery Skein Swap Partner has received her package, I can show you what I made for her. Remember the skein of cream yarn I posted about? Here is the finished product thoughtfully modeled by Howard.

I took the skein of cream yarn, and added two strands of Brown Sheep Naturespun Sport -- one of Metropolitan Turquoise and one of Blue Knight. The center area -- where I realized that that there wasn't going to be nearly enough of the cream -- was an additional strand of the Blue Knight. I was running a bit tight (i.e. I was running out!) of the Blue Knight by the handles, so one handle is 2 strands of turquoise and 1 of blue, the other (the first half) is 2 strands of Blue Knight and one of turquoise. Oddly enough, it doesn't jump out and announce the difference.

I tried, I really did. Mary D, one of the people in my knitting group, told me about putting plastic tubing in your i-cord to prevent it from stretching. After several trips to the E.R. for allergies, as well as having to borrow a nebulizer when my own died, I have lots of plastic tubing on hand. (Doesn't everyone ask the E.R. to save the plastic tubing from your breathing treatments?) Anyway, after I knit up the i-cord, we (as in Howard -- I lost patience quickly when it kept poking through my stitches) threaded the tubing in the i-cord. Then it was fulled/felted. Worked really well, the nicest, roundest i-cord I've made. Unfortunately, as I tried to cut the tubing to fit the bag (as the tubing now extended way beyond the fulled i-cord) I...goofed. The tubing pulled out, leaving me with my nice ROUND i-cord, without the tubing. I'll have to try again, it makes sense, it was operator error.

Today I went to the school about a half an hour away to talk with more girls about knitting. They were so excited, it was fun. There was also an older woman who came as well. This is going to be a weekly (except for school interruptions) meeting -- teaching them more about knitting. Right now they know how to cast on, knit and bind off. They may know how to purl, but it didn't look like it today. Their stated goals (there were 8 people there, so the goals vary):
1. to make a scarf that she can be proud of;
2-5. mittens
6-7. hats
8. stranded knitting -- preferably in a scarf
We can do this! Today I touched briefly on Russian Joins (try describing this without yarn and a needle -- I drew it on the whiteboard and promised that I'd bring yarn and needles next week!) as well as other methods of joining yarn without making a knot and knitting on. I also showed some of the things I have knit, as well as passing around many different types of yarns. These girls have really only been exposed to acrylics, so they enjoyed the different textures as well as the possibilities ahead of them.

Why do we, as teachers and learners, tend to limit ourselves? "That is too hard for me to try." or "I can't do that." By setting ourselves up to fail, we make it difficult to learn any more than what we've already done. ARGH! Or, another one "I don't have the patience for that." From someone who has knit several garter stitch scarves, I really have to wonder if they realize what they are saying. Isn't it closer to "I'm afraid to try anything new?" Okay, rant over.

It has still been COLD here. I brought in the totes from outside tonight. They had been in the frigid temps for 3 days. I found it telling that after almost 2 hours inside, some of them STILL had snow on the lids. Wow, we are supposed to be all the way up to 20*F - -6.6*C by Monday. HEAT WAVE!