Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Hokie Hope



Friday, April 20, 2007 was Hokie Hope Day.

In Virginia and Pennsylvania it was declared a day of mourning.

President Busch declared it a Day of Prayer.

I don't know what happened to the young man who shot so many people. I wish someone had been able to help him earlier in life. I mourn for all the families.


It's many years since I attended VPI. My niece is currently a student there. She is friends with a victim of the shooting. She was on her way to class when cops ran at her with guns. They were trying to protect her, to get her to a safe place. She was fortunate.

She took it hard, her friend being shot, but she is now doing much better.

Hubby and I wore our orange and maroon on Friday with pride.

I hope the healing will now begin.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

We are all Hokies Today

We are the Hokies
We wil prevail
We will prevail
We will prevail
We are Virginia Tech
--Nikki Giovanni

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Finished Knitting but...

I finished the knitting on the Fixation Tank. Since it has been quite some time since I did a three-needle bind-off, I forgot what each side looked like. Therefore, instead of performing the bind-off on the public side, I should have performed it on the private side.




I'll be pulling out those few stitches today and reworking them. Then I'll get the ends woven-in. Hopefully, by the end of the day I'll have a wearable garment.

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Knitta-Palooza 2007, Entry 3

Friday, continued:

After breakfast and the Fashion Show, classes began. I started with Sally Melville and enjoyed her immensely. I had never tried the crocheted cast-on and was very pleased with the look of it. I found Sally Melville to be pleasant, patient, and positive. I'd take classes with her again in a heart beat!







Friday evening involved desert, shopping, and there may have more but I spent all my evening time in the actual Ewe Knit Kits shop that was opened up for our shopping pleasure from 7 - 9 pm. I picked up some Cascade Fixation for a little shell I've been wanting to make along with a hank of Helen's Lace for a shawl.

Show-and-Tell was scheduled for Friay night but ended up happening later. I think so many of us were just too busy shopping our little hearts out to show anything.


Saturday:

Judy Pascale is lively. She was so incredibly approachable, had a great sense of humor, and gave personal attention to anyone who needed it. While taking her Shawlette class, we experimented with different beads, learned a different bind-off, talked about different items that could be used to make shawl pins and closure-type pieces. I took this class because I thought it would be fun and it really was. I ended up learning a few new techniques and if I have the opportunity to take classes with Judy Pascale again, I will.




Saturday evening we were treated to a lecture by Sally Melville, followed by Show-and-Tell. Although I took three items with me, I chose not to show any of them. I'm not really sure why. Maybe I was just too tired.

Of the people that did show their items, here are a few:







(The blanket pictured is over 40 years old. The lady who knit it made a chart up of things she thought would be cute for blanket for her baby, then knit it. It was her first experience with intarsia and she had no idea what all would be involved, had no concept of what difficulties she could encounter, but went boldy forth.)


Sunday:
The last day of the event was bittersweet. I was enjoying myself but I was also a wee bit tired. I debated about missing the Creativity lecture since I wasn't feeling quitle like myself, but decided to go because I found Sally Melville such a great teacher that I thought she'd probably be an inspiring speaker.

I was not disappointed. If I had missed this lecture, I would have been very sorry.

After the lecture, people scattered quickly. I got to say good-bye to most of the people with whom I interacted but I missed a few. I sat next to a very sweet lady in the shawlette class but failed to find her name, which is just crazy since we were all wearing name tags.

Am I going to Knitta-Palooza next year? I was the first to sign-up!

In current knitting news:
I'm about 80% done with my Cascade shell. If I'm feeling any better, I'll try to get a little bit of knitting done on it tonight. I'm a little bit larger than I thought I was so I may have to wait until after I've dropped a few pounds to wear it.

Once the shell is done, I'll probably jump back into the socks because I still don't have needles that I like for lace.

Hoping to have a photo of the shell up soon!


****Blogger having issues will try to upload photos later!