Antique Quilt---- Knit Bozo

The studio where I toil (and toil) away is located upstairs of a wonderful emporium of all manner of things antique. It's wonderful eye candy and a source of great temptation. On my last trip into work, I parked the car and walked in front of the antiques store and what did I see in the window? New and quietly tucked underneath a big old wrought iron bird cage filled with flowers? A quilt! I'm a sucker for antique quilts and so of course I had to go in. On closer inspection the quilt was full sized, and in remarkably good condition showing really marginal signs of wear. The colors held pretty true, the stitching was only broken in a tiny few places, and there were no holes or rips and tears. The batting, once cotton, had gotten quite thin--- but it was beautiful. I'm sort of in a blue period (colorwise) and this simple square in a square really appealed to me. When I asked the price the owner told me that she had just reduced it and that it was $25.00. How fast can you say sold? It came home with me that very moment!

So pretty! You can see the wide border of blue, the second border is the soft white.

The fabrics in the quilt are quite soft as well, a nice small scale plaid and a red, cream and blue print.

Prince, handsome boy dog that he is thought it was VERY nice of me to put a soft pretty new quilt on the loveseat that the dogs have claimed as theirs in the second floor 'lookout'. He immediately jumped up in such excitement! He is singing the Prince Dog song in the photo above--- if only you could hear!!!

His sister Hana promptly decided that she had to claim a spot on the new quilt as well. How lucky are these dogs? Comfy new digs! Woo Hoo!

Of course that prompted a bit of brother and sisterly sparring over the space---- turf wars as it was. In the shot above you can see Prince saying "excuse me, I believe this is MY space" and Hana is jumping off. Just so you know------ she always comes back and she always wins! They were both pretty miffed when I folded the quilt and hung it on the stair rail to be enjoyed.

It is official! I am a Knit Bozo. Knit group was yesterday and as always, the time was great. I'd spent the early afternoon outdoors (it was almost 80 here in an unseasonably warm burst of spring) doing a light cleanup of the yard. Leaves were blown out, a bit of raking, etc. The day was simply far too glorious to be inside! Not to miss knitting, I did wander over to the local coffee shop to catch up with the ladies. Bless the ever lovin' hearts of rms and Yoel---- they got my Two at a Time Socks straightened out. To sound like an old tv show, when last we saw the 2 at a time Socks, they had the ribbed cuffs knit on dpn's and placed onto that long cable in preparation for knitting. I did NOT get it, no way no how it made sense to me, I felt like the worlds biggest dork!!! To add into that, these kind knitters discovered that in my complete and extraordinary befuddlement I had knit a row on one of the socks backwards. Don't even ask how I did that because I have no idea. None. I carefully tinked back and rms kindly got my socks in the correct position. Off I went, thanks in FULL measure to rms and Yoel. I think I have done about 10 rows of the body of "Twilight".

So, here is the deal. I am just not sure that I will ever find pleasure in knitting both socks at once in the 2 at a Time (or Loop) method. I am not certain at all that it is faster for me, although to have two socks completed at the same time will certainly be wonderful. The ever tangling yarn makes me beyond crazy and there is all that sliding and fiddling of the cable to be able to make the knitting happen. Perhaps my biggest brain wrinkle was that I thought (wrongly assumed) that you knit a complete round on a sock before moving on to the other---- not that you knit one half of a sock, moved on to the other, turned that sock and finished the first. It just did not gel with me. Refer back to Knit Bozo.

Turning the heel has already made me very nervous. I can't feature how it will all pan out to save my life.

I'll plod ahead and offer thanks to help that will surely be needed along the way. I'm holding out final pronouncement of how the method will figure into my knitting practice until I'm done. That is after all, only fair. I do wonder, and hope--- that the knit community can embrace the different styles of knitting as what brings each individual pleasure, i.e. what makes a knitter happy as they complete a project in their style. Whether we choose looping, 2 at a Timing, 2 circs, or trusty dpn's........ whether we knit lace fripperies or find joy in cotton dishcloths----- it is after all, about the joy and peace we all find individually as we work the stitches one after another until the end result is a finished project. The work of our hands, done in our style.

Mama always said that everyone was different and that it takes a lot of folks to make the world go around.

The almost 80 degree spring teaser of yesterday promises to bring rapidly falling temps on this gray and rainy day. We'll finish the day with sleet and freezing rain, turning to heavy snow tomorrow. My Bernina is back and I'm finishing my incredibly wonderful big ole' bag and I'm going to paint the living room. Why not----- it may be the last snow days of this long winter. (PLEASE be the last snow days of this interminably long winter. Please.)