THE LIMITATIONS OF AN RV

It really is kind of neat living for a long period in a 29'x10' space as long as the weather is nice. Some of the advantages for me are that my little kitchen just takes a quarter turn from the sink to the fridge to the stove to the trash can, and it has a window (currently with a North Mountain view) and an eye level microwave. The hard part is owning an non-moveable home thousands of miles away. Every time I get started on a project, one of the items I need is across country ... thus the shopping trip. Today I was going to pick up a pattern or two to introduce to my sisters, and any others who want to join us for the knitting lessons scheduled to begin "WHEN ANDREA'S SWEATER IS COMPLETE." At the craft store I saw a book that is PERFECT. Then my feeble brain, excuse the senior moment, stood there thinking, 'I have this book already,' is it at home or with us in the camper? I didn't buy it and YEAH, it's in the camper ... you're going to love this one... more later.

I'm pretty excited - can you tell?

GOING SHOPPING

OK, I'm going shopping for a few EASY patterns to get started. BTW (by the way) I knit continental style. I'm more than happy to teach English style, but I love Continental because you can relax your right arm, the wrap the yarn around the left needle with the right arm kinda gets to my elbow! Any opinions on this are certainly welcome. I can revise any instructions to my personal taste for Continental style. The basic difference is that you hold the working yarn on your left index finger and pinky as you work, and grab it with the right needle, instead of holding it in your right hand and making the sweep to move the yarn to the left needle to capture the next stich. If this is confusing, ignore it, I'll be showing pictures when we start lessons.

ABOUT AVEN'S HOODIE

On the Coats and Clark web page if you click Free Patterns, and look at baby knit patterns, the yarn this calls for is Red Heart Baby Soft and Red Heart LTD. Foxy. It's a basic pattern and it can be printed from the web page. You use two strands of yarn throughout the entire piece, except the fur trim.
It's my first clothing item where I had to sew the seams and ADD A ZIPPER, whoa! But I did it. For my FIRST granddaughter, AVEN Catherine Mundell, who was a 19 month "paper pregnancy" adopted from Guatemala ... arrival in USA January 4th, 2008. oops, this is knitting not g-babies, forgive me, and get used to this bragging side of me.

I'M ELATED

This is pure excitement. My own BLOG and my first post. Bossy says she's going to start with a sweater and hold my feet to the fire helping her finish it, but I've always wanted to be a teacher, and I plan to start simple. It would be cool to take pictures of our hands (I know they ain't young anymore) actually working on different steps, as we could be teaching people we've never met as we go along. Thanks sis!! Now to get started.

OK THE FIRST EXCUSE TO GETTING STARTED!

ANDREA COMES FIRST. Well, I know you understand, but I need to explain anyway. After completing the sweet little hoodie sweater for AVEN, Andrea made a special request ... a MOMMY SIZE sweater. I'll finish it before we start this project, but we can still start lookin', right?

THE CHALLENGE

OK you two. Today I'm challenging you to get to the store start looking for a simple pattern that you like, DON'T BUY THE YARN AND NEEDLES YET ... we're all going to do the same knitting project and report on the progress right here!!

My choice would be a scarf or small throw. Karen I know you haven't knitted in a long time, and Barb I know I've promised to teach you for a lot of years - well, here we go.

1st step CHOOSE A PATTERN
2nd step WE ALL SHOP AT THE SAME TIME (virtually)
3rd step WE CAN POST PICTURES OF OUR PROGRESS

I'm excited how about you?