And now for something completely different…

First of all, thank you all for the sweet condolences on our loss of Lewey. A million things every day remind us of him, but in a lovely, happy way. We don’t know yet if there will be another pup in our future, it is just too early to decide that.

So here’s what’s new in the Knitting Doctor world.

I joined TKGA (the Knitting Guild of America) last week sort of on a whim. I’ve been curious about their Master Handknitting certification program for a long time, but figured I needed a block of time free to do all the work for that. My friend Dorothy completed this earlier this year, and it inspired me to look at this a little more seriously.

I am retiring as of February 1st next year, just a little over 3 months from now. I turn 65 next fall, and was planning on a late spring retirement, but moved it up recently for all sorts of reasons. So now I’ll have that big block of time, with no further excuses!

I decided to start smaller. TKGA has a number of terrific looking “correspondence courses” that are much less involved that the full certification process, the one I have signed up for is Basics, Basics, Basics. It is just what it sounds like. I have the first lesson in hand, as well as the yarn, and will get organized and start working on this in the coming months. After reading through the materials, as well as a bunch of things on their website, I’m already starting to look at my knitting more critically, which is the whole point. I’m pretty sure that I’m going to have my biggest hurdles with even tension and finishing techniques.

In the meantime, I have a baby blanket to finish.

The lace edge is knitted on around the garter stitch square, I’ve finished half of it. It’s a bazillion repeats, with short row sections around the corners, which is something new for me. I have been under the misinformation that the baby is due about a month before it really is, so I have a bit of a grace period. This should be a rule for family babies. Just tell me it’s due the first of November when it really isn’t, and I might finish the project before the kid gets his driver’s license.

That’s all I have. I hope your new week starts out well. I’ll leave you all with one last Lewey photo.