11 days since my last post, that is. That has to be some kind of record. Let me explain. (No, there is too much. Let me sum up.*)
I’ve been on vacation in lovely North Dakota, visiting my sister. This year was her 40th high school reunion, and I came along for moral support. We’ve had so much fun here that I just haven’t had time to even think about blogging. Actually, her computer is a bit slow, so I haven’t had the patience to download pictures and do the whole blog post thing until this morning. I have been knitting this week, however.
I brought two projects with me, the orange Pippa cardigan, and Langsjal Johonnu. Most of the week we spent in Fargo, where she lives, and I alternated between the two projects. I can work on the stole when I have relative peace and quiet and can pay attention, and the cardigan is for the rest of the time. I packed both for the road trip to Edgeley, the little town that we grew up in. Of course I managed to sit on the bag that the cardigan was in, and snapped one of my ebony (sob) circular needles within about ten minutes of getting there. Let me just say that Edgeley doesn’t have a good yarn shop so I could replace it. Then I got stuck while knitting the stole, at the section where you change from knitting the border to knitting the middle part. For some reason I couldn’t make the numbers work out. The lace pattern is charted, and the horizontal repeat isn’t marked on the chart, so I had to figure out which stitches were the borders, and which stitches repeated nine hundred times across the width of the shawl. I finally figured this out yesterday morning (in a sober moment) and I’m off to the races. It looks like a mess of wadded up lace at the moment, so no pictures of the progress for now. That will have to wait until I’m home and can pin it out on the blocking mat for a proper photo.
Here is one photo however. This one was taken before I figured out the numbers on the chart.
Perhaps the bourbon had something to do with my counting difficulties. I’m not willing to concede that just yet.
In case you think that North Dakota has no cultural activities, check out this link. Make sure you look through the gallery of photos.
* Inigo Montoya, Princess Bride
How great that you got to go spend time with your sister, even with the knitting mishaps. Bummer about the needle, and, yes, the size of that snort may have had something to do with your counting abilities. I need ALL my wits about me to knit lace! It is going to be pretty, though, can’t wait to see a proper picture!
PS – love the Princess Bride reference! I recognized it right away!
Yay for visiting your sister, boooo for the broken needle. Love the Princess Bride, quote it all the time, my favorite being “liar” lately. Don’t know why…..but everyone in this house know’s how to respond to any quote from that movie!
I recognized that quote right away…
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
We had hysterics one weekend in my sorority house (I think that was the only weekend I actually hung out with those girls) watching Princess Bride a bintillion times and saying that quote over and over again in different voices.
And now that I’ve typed that out, it’s not so funny anymore.. 🙂
“Maybe” the bourbon had a “little” to do with the difficulty in working out the math. I’m not saying for sure…only time will tell.
Enjoyed your post, as usual.
mk
Congrats on figuring out your place in the shawl. Sometimes charts are like that, takes a lot of time (with or without bourbon) to decipher what to do, and when the deciphering is done, you can’t believe how long it took you!!
We leave for BCN on Saturday. I am completing a shapely shawlette for the trip, and will take two shawls to work on. Let’s see whetehr I will acturally get any serious knitting done!!
Y’all are wrong — bourbon makes knitting much easier. And your pattern becomes much more interesting than the designer had in mind….
A quote I could actually identify!
My dad grew up in north central NoDak, so I spent many exciting hours there as a child… Strangely, the bison gallery looks like something Custer, SoDak has going on, too. Hmm.
Gosh, I can’t imagine why you’d have trouble with your numbers with that bourbon in hand…
Thanks for the link. We
Sorry Lorette, but I don’t think you can blame the bourbon on your counting skills. Unless that bottle was fresh before you started counting! Oh, and love the scarf you sent mom – it’s gorgeous!
Listen, I’m in awe that you are capable of coherent thought after that *shot* forget counting or laceknitting! I’m glad you had a fun reason for being away so long 🙂
I made the DH watch it, which makes about the fourth time for me. He loved it. I loved it.
I’m glad you’re having a good vacation. House repair is stressful enough to need something like this. Knitting and bourbon? Unsafe at any speed.
what a neat link (ND)…love their buffalo! I was wondering where you escaped to! Glad your back and that you had a wonderful time!
NIce to hear from you again, I’ve missed you! Sounds like a nice trip, well except for the broken needle. But then again to me, any trip with knitting is nice.