On A November Day

 "My Sorrow, when she's here with me,

    Thinks these dark days of autumn rain 

Are beautiful as they can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

    She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

    She talks and I am fain to list:

She's glad the birds are gone away,

She's glad her simple worsted gray

    Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,

    The faded earth, the heavy sky,

The beauties she so truly sees,

She thinks I have no eye for these,

    And vexes me for reason why. . ."

-----from "My November Guest," 

                         by Robert Frost

My Spring Garden Shorties

I started these fingerless mitts twice and had to rip them all the way out and start a third time. I did not understand the directions. Knitting is like math--if you get one step in the process wrong, everything after that will be wrong.

This is my third attempt, and it is succeeding because I read and reread the directions, using my copy of Vogue Knitting to help me figure out the pattern.

My gripe: the person who wrote the directions in this book (Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders) should have made them as explicit as possible, not just "work in pattern," because the K (even) rows were deliberately omitted in places. If designers and editors want more people to knit, buy yarn, and knitting books, they need to write out the patterns line-by-line as well as give the symbols and charts. I'm keeping track by crossing off every step in a notebook.

This is a Panda Superwash yarn, but not exactly the one in the book. I have to find the label.

Working On Exchanges

I've been working on exchanges--the HOE Christmas Box and the HOE Stitcher's Choice Ornament. I finished the cross stitch for both, but have not bought the box yet, nor finished the ornie. I chose a pattern for the box that is really nice (IMHO) but is not one I've seen around the blogs more than twice.

I need to work on this blog, and I have been avoiding it for a long time. I've been concentrating on other things, but now want to address this issue. I have to go through all of my backup CDs of oictures and get them downloaded on here. I have to put my own (free) charts into my PC Stitch, and then make them into PDFs on Google Docs. When I tried to make PDFs before, it was with an outdated computer.