Home Again

Lucia Herndon Horning

I can breathe again. My sweater is back.
As you might recall from last month's post, I lost the argyle vest that was supposed to be a present for my husband on his Nov. 18 birthday. But I lost the bag that contained my work. I thought I left it at a treatment facility where I volunteer, but no one there had reported seeing it.
I spent an awful weekend trying to decide what to do. i started knitting the back which was just plain, figuring I wouldn't lose time if I truly had lost the front piece. But my heart wasn't into the easy knitting. I felt an ache in my heart over my lost knitting. Like losing your dog. I kept looking in my knitting bag, hoping it would magically appear. Of course, it didn't.
At 7:20 on Monday morning the phone rang. I was still asleep. It was the director of the treatment center. She had found my vest.
Turned out the vest was discovered shortly after I left that Friday; but it was turned over to a weekend staffer and not a knitter. She simply stashed it away without telling anyone about it. But the director was determined to track it down and she found it and called right away.
The vest is back and I am nearly finished; probably won't be in time for my husband's birthday. But I am reassured that I hadn't lost my mind.
And I am grateful to all those who heard this story and shared my panic. I'm back to just misplacing my keys, grocery list, money and hundreds of other things. Normality feels so good

This is a little late, but is too fabulous to pass up. Here is our Annie, in full Halloween dress. She was the Bad Knitting Witch:


















Check out the evil apples she was sporting:














("Carpal Tunnel", "Felted Disaster - I'm Shrinking!" ,"Bad Pattern Instructions")
















("Dropped Stitches", "Twisted Cast-On")















("Snapped Needles", Tangled Yarn")

Hands down the funniest Halloween costume I've seen in years.

Our next Knit-Along is the beauteous (and easy!) Heartstrings Beaded Lace Scarf. Here's a picture of the finished scarf:


















Here's my in-progress project:


















I've loved working on this! We're having a Pre-Requisite Class on Sunday, November 9 from 10-12 where we'll show you how to string the beads and do some repeats of the lace pattern.

The Knit-Along itself will be held on Wednesday, November, 19 and Wednesday, December 17 from 7-9pm. Call the store at 215-242-1271 to sign up for both or just the Knit-Along.

Mwaaaaaaaaahhhh!! Look how cute these turned out!! These are the hedgehogs the students made in the Huggable Hedgehog class. I love how they're all different sizes. Great job, all!!

Okay, PHEW! Lucia found her sweater.

GO PHILLIES!!

Have You Seen My Sweater?

I have experienced a knitting disaster. We’ve all had them of course. The cable sweater where you forget to cable on a few rows. The lace scarf that has a few too many yarnovers; you want to call them eyelets, but you know that they are holes.

Yes, I’ve done those things, but my most recent disaster seems to be beyond reclamation.

I have lost the almost completed front of my husband’s birthday sweater.

I knit him a sweater every birthday. This year it is an argyle vest. I have taken meticulous care with all the bobbins hanging and dangling and getting in the way. As is my way, I enlarged the color chart to poster size to give me half a chance of keeping my colorwork on target. It is a slow knit and I have been working stop-start since June.

It was that stop-start knitting that made me realize I had to pick up the pace. So instead of knitting it at home following supper and evening household chores, I began taking it along with me during the day. I worked on it while my car was being washed. I took it to a doctor’s appointment for the inevitable wait. And I took it to a rehab center where I volunteer in the knitting therapy program.

And that is where it seems to have vanished. On this particular day, it stayed unworked on as residents of the facility were having a lot of knitting problems that required my eyes and hands. At the end of the session, I put my notion bag in my knitting bag where I thought my argyle safely resided. But when I got home, the pattern was in my bag but not actual knitting. No bobbins, no yarn, no needles.

The air was sucked out of my chest. I turned the bag inside out. I looked under the seats of my car. I called the center, but the director had left for the weekend. No one had seen my knitting.

I can’t believe that it’s gone. I have gotten forgetful in my old age; as my hormones retreat with middle age they seems to have taken my memory with them. I have forgotten my jacket, my purse, my grocery list, forgotten to buy things on my list when I had it in my hand.

But I have never lost a knitting project. I am bereft. I don’t know what to do; the notion that I will have to start all over makes me distracted and slightly nauseous. I’m even more forgetful. I keep expecting to find the sweater in some off place -- like under my bed. I check every day.

It looks like it is gone. It looks like I’ll be starting again although that idea makes me weep. Worse I won’t have a sweater by Nov. 18. I can’t knit that fast -- and color changing really slows me down. I guess the sweater will be a Christmas gift.

But I can’t get over the absence of my work. Feels like I lost a finger. Very unsettling. I’ve been told to ask Anthony, patron saint of lost objects, to help. So far, it seems he wants me to continue looking under my bed.

So I’m asking for your good thoughts. Maybe if I get going a good knitting vibe, my sweater will find its way home.

Thanks in advance. And keep an eye on your own project!

What we're crazy about today..... This!!



















This is the Jojoland Swirl Shawl (we have a sample of the scarf size). It's one of those great patterns where interesting technique and gorgeous yarn meet in a really wonderful way. The shawl is composed of multiple hexagons joined as you go along. And the yarn, Jojoland Melody, is bee-yoo-tiful!! It's fingering weight, superwash 100% wool, in gorgeous variegated colorways.














I, for one, can't wait to get started. (I already have my yarn picked out!) If you're hankering for a interesting shawl pattern come on down! We have 4 other scarf patterns from the company, and the yarn in 11 different colorways.