Baby Knitters

Phew, what a day! I've been up since 5am - had to drive Hubby and Son to the train very early... then took Dotter to a doctor's appointment, the National Art Gallery (cos she wanted some inspiration), hydrotherapy at the hospital, grocery shopping, and have also been weeding and cleaning up for yet another house inspection first thing tomorrow. Still more cleaning to do tonight too... Am a *tad* weary. But I'm enjoying having no boys in the house!

While I was waiting for Dotter at hydro, another regular family arrived - mother with 5 (!) kids under 10. Last week her kids had been fascinated, watching me knit my pink lace shawl (Forest Canopy).

Today I took along my Short Circuit Scarf. It always gets attention when I knit it in public! Firstly an elderly woman just out of the pool had a close look at the scarf and said she'd never seen anything like it, how astonishing, and chatted for a bit (she could no longer knit due to arthritis). She had no idea you could dye wool with food colouring (I was wearing my Jaywalker green socks), and was quite amazed :)

The bevy of kids arrived shortly after. Once again they gathered around my chair, and asked if they could have a go - well, I didn't mind, seeing as it was just garter stitch and short rows - and it wouldn't be a tragedy if I had to unravel a few rows. I knew that their mum didn't knit, from what she'd said last week - so I suggested that maybe their teachers at school could show them - but it turned out they were homeschooled! So that was cool (I used to homeschool my kids - Dotter to Grade 4, and Son to Grade 10).... they're in the Christian homeschoolers group, so we didn't have friends in common (we were always in the secular "rugged individuals" camp ;) - but we still understood each other.

I then gave each kid a go at my knitting - I held the left needle, and helped them do the right needle into the stitch, yarn over, and pull it through and off. Two of the boys were really fascinated, and the eldest child, a girl of about 10, was very keen too. They were begging their mum to get them needles and wool - I said I would bring along some needles next week (I have plenty to spare) and some yarn - and will write out a few web sites and books to look for. The mum also said they could ask their Nanna, who knows how to knit...

So that was rather fun - igniting the knitting fire in a whole family at once - and I didn't even have to undo any of their knitting, they did a good job!

Anyway - here is the finished Mariah sleeve #1, waiting on its fluro shoelace for the rest of the cardy to catch up.... I'm about 6 rows into the ribbing for the back. Photo isn't great, sorry - indoors with flash...


And this is where I'm up to on my red stash-busting mitred square lap rug... I'm not bothering about whether the diagonals all go in the same direction or anything, it's just a bit of fun. It's big enough to keep my knees warm while I'm knitting it now. I'm picking up stitches along the edges when I cast on - so no seams!


And some computery news, my Adobe Creative Suite 3 upgrade arrived today and I've successfully installed it. Horribly expensive at over $600 just for the upgrade - ouch - but necessary for my Intel Inside Mac Mini, to stop the major memory handling problems that were rampant with CS2. Plus there are a few nice goodies, such as being able to use an eraser on vector images in Illustrator! W00t!

Time for steak with bleu cheese sauce (something the boys would never eat), and salad, SBS for and Inspector Rex, The Eagle, knitting, and an early night!