Ouch!

I thought I would get a lot of knitting done this weekend, because we were on an antique car tour.

This is our 1907 Franklin (with my daughter in the front seat and my oldest son and nephew in the back). We joined about 20 other very early cars for a Horseless Carriage Club tour in Superior, WI and Duluth, MN. Most of the time I rode with my other son in another car, because we didn't have enough room in our car to carry everyone.

I got quite a bit of knitting done on a new sweater out of orange Berroco Touche (you may recall that originally I had tried to crochet a pattern from the newest Berroco crochet booklet out of this yarn, but the pattern was incorrect - Berroco sent me a hand-drawn chart with the correct pattern, but they have yet to put written errata on their website and I'm just not proficient at reading crochet charts). However, much of it was done while I was in the emergency room after ... I broke my leg!!

I took a little spill down a water runoff on a slope near the shore of Lake Superior and broke my tibia about 3" above my ankle and sheared off the back of my ankle bone. I'm hoping to get lots of knitting and needlepointing and crocheting done while I recuperate!! (There's always a silver lining...) I don't have a cast yet - just a splint, because I have to see the orthopedic surgeon tomorrow to find out if I need surgery. I hope I don't and that they can just cast it up and send me home!... I'm going to be fine, but there goes my trip to Disneyland with the kids in August as well as the Nike Women's Marathon that I was going to do with Team in Training in October. Sigh!

A Star is Born

O.K., maybe a bit player is born! I woke up super early yesterday morning (3:50!) so I could go and participate in a promo on the KARE 11 morning show for Stitch N Pitch. If you don't know what Stitch N Pitch is, check out The National Needlearts Association for more info across the nation or the Minnesota Twins website for the Stitch N Pitch event on Sunday, July 22, at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

I'm the one in the red shirt behind the guy with the blond hair (Steven Berg from The Yarn Garage who was immortalized today in the Star Trib). The only person interviewed from the group of stitchers was the little girl on the left who surprised the interviewer by answering the question of what she was knitting with "A hedgehog." You should have seen the look on the interviewer's face - it was classic: skeptical, amazed, etc. I was happy I had brought a few props along, because not only did we get the hat my partner Cis made for TC (the Twin's mascot) on air, but they also talked about our Twins tote during both segments!

Crocheted Bowl #3

The 3rd rendition of the crocheted bowl didn’t turn out too well, either – at least not how I had hoped it would! It’s not terrible, just not right. Not only did the bead wire not work exactly as hoped, but I still can’t seem to get the shaping right so it will look like my MIL’s bowl. I need to have a much steeper decrease after the widest part… I went to the local craft store and picked up some hollow tubing that is used to make those plastic tube bracelets that teenagers wear, and I’m trying the 4th version with that. I will work on the shaping again, too.


Here’s a needlepoint canvas that I’ve been doing. It’s 13 mesh. I’m using primarily Silk & Ivory threads with some Kreinik braid and Rainbow Gallery Frosty Rays for the bird and other things. I think it’s rather cute!

I have a few (!) other projects I'm working on which I'll show over the next few posts.

Hey, has anyone seen the new Harry Potter movie? I'm going tomorrow - I hope!

Happy Independence Day!

For all of the Americans out there, Happy Independence Day! We have not decided on our plans for the day, but I'm happy just sitting and stitching.

I am currently working hard on my crocheted bowl that I started a while ago. In case you don't remember, this is a bowl I am trying to design based on a bowl my MIL wove when she was in college (see photo at right). Originally, I thought I would crochet it (out of Noro Kureyon) with a largish hook (L?) then felt it, but that attempt wasn't too successful:

Next I tried to go down to a J hook,

which was better, but still floppy:

So now, I'm using a D hook and I'm carrying along some jewelry/beading wire (Soft Flex Medium - 49 strands). I was given the idea to carry along the wire by our Karabella rep, Kathy, whom I was telling about the original woven bowl. She asked if it was woven around some basketry fiber, and I said I didn't know, but it put the idea in my mind! I'm about half finished with the bowl; we'll see how it goes!