Last year was our first year as a group to make lap size afghans for the retirement home residents.  I thought I was going to loose my mind.  I made several and Peggy made some and Kat made some and still it seemed that we were not getting any closer to our goal.  Sharon came back from up north and Dr.Cathy and Miss Pricilla came home and they turned in some and still I was so worried.  As it turned out December 17, 2011 rolled around and we had exactly enough.  I did a lot of crying that day.  Relief, but also sadness in that we were the only Christmas some of these folks would get.

This year we have taken on a slightly larger home.  We have Jody and Donna and LaTonia and several more. New friends who came in with us and who have been a gift from the Holy Mother. The blankets are coming in at a steady pace and I am feeling that we will make our goal.  I have done some and still have a few more I want to finish.

I am looking at all my yarn and all the projects on the needles and thinking I need to get busy on some promised projects of my own.

I have decided to make 2012 a year of Magical knitting.

First off are the shawls for my sisters of circle.  Then there are my robes. I bought that yarn back when I have yet to get anything done.  I love that yarn and it is a labor of love.

I look at my collection or projects and think ok you thirty or so… who gets to be pushed back? 

John’s birthday is coming.  He loves fedoras.  I saw a pattern to knit and felt one. I ought just knit one.  I just got in the virgin wool in black.  He’ll be able to use it for a while.

Then there is Dave.  He could use some really warm riding socks and a helmet liner.  His birthday is in November.

Why is falling love so hard on the knitting?

THE CROCHETING MALE

Where do I start? How about Tori moved back home. Or, Tore moved home and brought her fella. Perhaps it would be easier to say that she and Leon got married on December 31, 2011.

Ok, I got my baby girl back. I am so happy to have her where I know she’s eating 3 a day and has heat and water. She went through a bad patch. I don’t think I still know the half of it. When she got really stressed she called me and asked that I bring her some yarn and crochet hooks. I was proud to pull together a big bag. They moved in with me on December 17^th.

As you may have guessed there is new twist. He crochets.

He has joined us at the knitting meet ups. I have GOT to work on him about his conversational skills. Some of the things he says!

I have to date looked up a pattern for the Confederate Battle flag. Yes, there is one. I made him promise to also do an Old Glory for the Honoring our seniors program before I agreed to hunt up yarn for him. They are both red, white and blue…. Patterns for several sports teams and NASCAR, assorted household items, and I guess he will have to write his own pattern for a riffle cozy.

When we shop for yarn he looks at the camouflage. I wonder: do they make that stuff just for guys like him? He prefers steel hooks. Won’t touch one that’s “pink”.

Tori has/is teaching him Tunisian crochet. He wants to learn to make “cool blankets and stuff like Miss Kat.”

I have come to realization that the stash much now be a three way split. He is NOT getting any of my black. I have plans for it!

He is a mess in his tough red-neck mannishness. He won’t crochet with pink yarn either. He insists on being sooo manly.

I wonder: He does know he’s a crocheting man. Right?

Of all the knitting magazines on all the news stands....

Last year I was soo gleeful about ordering all the known knitting magazines available in north America. At the time I was sure this was a really good idea. I had had my fill of getting an issue of the one or two that I was usually getting and being completely disgusted that the darn thing didn’t have a single pattern I would touch with some else’s needles. Or, skipping picking one up on the rack and discovering too late that it had a couple of good ones I would have liked to have seen.

With credit card in had I began logging into the various sites. I have discovered a few things.

One, just because you have an order confirmation does not insure that the subscription is paid for. More than one of the companies waited as long as 4 weeks to attempt to charge my card. Then, when it didn’t go through ….

Two, I had envisioned sitting down to roughly one issue a month and enjoying a leisurely read. Wrong! They are all quarterly and seem to arrive all at once. I have discovered unwrapped issues sitting in the read me pile along with the oil industry and construction trade magazines. A fun little surprise, until you realize that I picked up at lest two of these on the news stand “since I didn’t have it”…. To the tune of about 4 to 6 bucks a pop…

Three, I did get more patterns I liked. And that would be the crux of the problem. I now have in addition to the ones the kids picked out when they were here… 30 yes, I said 30 projects on the needles.

Kat made the comment that she must be knitting faster since I wasn’t finishing any projects lately and she was getting all these things finished.

Gee, I thought I was in danger of giving up sleep to knit. Just, no matter what I do, I can’t seem to make and any headway. Two to four inches is about all I can get done before I am forced or called to work on one of the other projects.

Did I mention I had found some wonderful vintage yarns on Ebay and I had started projects with that… not on the list of 30.

I renewed Knitting Today. I got an issue today. They changed it to Knitting Life. I think I am delighted to report that it sucks. They dropped all the features that I had decided to get it for. And expanded the crap I was willing to overlook. The bright side is that there was not even one pattern in an ad let alone featured in the magazine that I have ANY intention of ever knitting!

Thank God!!!!