A weekend of Knitting

First off, I must gloat in the cuteness of Summerlin.


I LOVE IT!! The sewing was easy, the knitting was easy and the end result is more impressive than the work involved. My favorite? The back button! I'm not always the most inventive/use what you have kind of girl. I have a ginormous amount of buttons, inherited from my grandma and my estate sale sewing machine purchase. Unfortunately, there are not loads of 'cute' buttons, but lots of practical 4-hole buttons. I didn't want a totally boring button, but I wasn't going to go out shopping to buy ONE button for this dress, so, I picked a while button and a orange-yellow button slightly smaller. I got my hot glue gun and some fishing line and - there you have it! I used the fishing wire because I needed something other than the tiny holes themselves to secure the button to the dress, so I was able to make a loop of wire, and secure it between the two button sandwiched with hot glue! (Please ignore the excess hot glue, it has since been picked off!) I'll be casting on another Summerlin quite shortly!

I had planned to work on the cabled hat the rest of the weekend, until I saw a post on Ravelry that sent me on a new project. You may have heard the story from MDS&W, but that weekend a lady from the western part of Virginia, an active knitter and pattern writer, and her husband had a terrible fire. Their home burnt completely and they lost everything. They were, luckily, insured, but obviously it is still devastating, and they lost one of their cats. They were in temporary housing for a while furnished by the red cross, but then moved to an apartment while they set about rebuilidng their home. By some cruel twist, on Thursday night, the apartment building they were living in caught fire and the majority of their belongings were, again, destroyed, and their second cat who survived the first fire was not so lucky this time. Now, I must say I'm not often a 'there is an emergency, let me knit something' kind of person, but I recalled reading after the first fire how much Rae enjoyed knit socks and they were all lost in her home and so I immediately felt the urge to knit her a pair. I can't even imagine what it would be like to experience so much material loss in such a short span. I know it won't replace a kitty, but I hope in a small way some socks from a stranger will give her some small comfort. I'm making beyond fast progress (quite unheard of for me). I'm using the STR medium weight that I won off Carrie's blog contest because her friends said Rae likes really colorful bright socks best. (Side note, Carrie, I can understand your obsession.. . .the yarn is AMAZING and I want 100 skeins of it right now!) The combination of thicker yarn + small-ish feet (48 stitch sock) + simple pattern + awesome yarn = FAST socks! I cast on ~10pm Saturday, and by 3pm Sunday sock #1 was complete. Sock #2 is nearly to the heel flap, I think it will finish tonite so I can send them off. They are a very simple 3x1 rib and super soft. Of course, this leaves Jake wondering why his socks have been OTN for so long when I can whip these out :)

On a last note, we watched Lars & The Real Girl Saturday night. You really need to rent it! Super sweet and touching story - and there is even a knitting scene - when the ladies in town come to 'sit' and a few knit and one does Needlepoint.

Hope you had an awesome weekend!