Oh, yeah. . . and. . .

I forgot, in my blogging binge the other day, to share these two items.

One:
Ya know that sweater that I tried to frog for the beautiful noro yarn? And how I got really frustrated and decided to scrap the whole idea?
Well, my mom sent me to this website about how to frog a sweater. I still didn't get what was wrong, even after reading this dumb proof guide. It wasn't until I re-did the ribbing on this hat that I realized what most people probably get when they first start to knit. You can't take anything apart from the cast-on edge. I mean, you can, but it's not easy. Tom was astounded that I hadn't thought of this. But, in my defense, I'm not a strong spatial person. There is a very specific reason why Tom packs our kayaks, packs the back of the car and is called into the kitchen everytime I need to put leftovers into a tupperware. I can't figure out in my head how things work spatially. That's why socks were such a hard thing for me to start. I couldn't visualize how they would go together. It was blind faith to just start a pattern and watch the sock appear like magic. Tom laughed at me when I finally pulled the sweater apart by freeing up the cast-OFF ends of the pieces. He said, "I figured you'd thought of that already. .. I mean, you can do so many things in knitting, I just figured you understood how the knots go together." So, uh, he could have helped me from the beginning, but instead stood by and watched me struggle. I know we all have different intelligences and that one of Tom's is spatial intelligence (does that even exist?), but I still feel kinda dumb. So I got lots of yarn out of the deal. .. and a little knowledge in how the knots go together in knitting.

Two:
On a wild hair, I put an ad in our local used product website 2 good 2 toss for used knitting patterns and supplies. I figured I might get some old lady's aluminum needles, some red heart yarn and a photocopy or two of those old slipper socks patterns. Instead, I got this stuff:




I figure it's probably $50 or more in new supplies. She just decided not to knit anymore and gave me her stash. Including a set of bamboo sock needles and some beautiful merino wool. Yum.

I jumped right in and used some of the novelty yarn on the cuffs of Abby's felted slippers. I'm almost done with the first one and I have to say, it scares me how big it is. Will it really get small enough for her? Hmm.