Out of my freakin' mind.

Do you see this?

IT IS A DISGUISE. That is not a cute child. No. It is an alien being designed entirely to DRIVE ME INSANE.

She spent the day stuck to me. Literally followed me everywhere. I'd turn around and step on her foot, or have to shove her out of the kitchen while the oven was on. Turn around, and I'd be shoving her out of the kitchen again. ALL DAY.

I'm a little squirrely.

And here the cat says "I know nothing about this. Heeheehee."



Okay. Okay. Getting a grip.

During the day I worked on this, off and on:

What is it, you ask? The start of "Tut, tut", my first for-sale knitting pattern. It will be a yoked sweater, and that's the general idea of what I'm doing for the yoke colors. (I had to fight the baby for the colored pencils.) I'm knitting the gauge swatch now, and the yarn gets ordered tomorrow. I'm also ordering yarn for my state fair entry. (Yarn orders for Christmas presents will wait until next month. I may live to regret it, but I'm not starting the Christmas knitting until later in the year.)

Tonight, out of the clear blue sky, the husbeast asked me how the Year of Me was going. I admitted, not too well. He suggested I do 'Year of Me version 2.0' for next year. I suspect I may wind up doing it. (Not to worry; there are two or three more designs I want to knit on that list, which would then be sized and the patterns put up for sale.) I may have also made my decision on what to knit for the Strikke-Along, but I've got three months to change my mind so I'm not gonna say what it is, and pretend later it was a solid decision all along.

There was a State Fair question, and it is true; submissions do NOT have to be original designs. They do have to be perfect, though. The only thing wrong with my submission in the women's sweater category last year was less-than-perfect end darning, and it didn't even place. Something to keep in mind, if you plan to enter. (And also, I'll be driving up to Columbia to hand in my entries, at the time, so if you want to ride along or have me drop them off for you, let me know.)



Just when all was lost, and I could feel my brains running out my ears, the mail came, and there was something for me in it!

Louiz sent me a bit of history from England! (I must add here, getting surprise packages in the mail never gets old, and I think the husbeast is getting jealous.)

"Complete Home Knitting, Illustrated" by Janet Murray and Jane Koster (?). There's no copyright date I can find, but there's an inscription in the front dated July 1, 1949. There's also a book plate saying it was presented to Dorothy Chilton of the Reid Street Girl's School for exemplary conduct and unselfish service. I love stuff like this. I wonder who Dorothy was, and if she was thrilled with a book of knitting patterns (like I would be), or if she was a kid who did knitting as a chore and would have rather had a bag of jacks or a ball.

As Louiz mentioned in her note to me, clothing rationing in England continued into the 1950's (results of WW2), and in the book there is indeed an entire section entitled "New garments from old". I've got a few other period books that discuss the subject, but it's always interesting to me, and gives a much better idea of what life was like then, than some silly pollitics lesson in history class. Another thing I just noticed, leafing through it again, is another example of how tight things were -- there is no cover page, none of the usual blank pages in front or back of the book. And every page is arranged to use up every inch of space.

It contains a great big whacking amount of patterns, and adjusted for a modern fit (we wear our things a lot more loosely these days), many of them are quite wearable. I've always liked the short-sleeved, tailored sweater for summer dress-up (with a skirt or slacks), and there are several nice ones in here that, at the least, I can use as a starting point to knit my own.

Thanks, Louiz, this is really neat.


The strange, alien being is jumping up and down in her crib... perhaps I should go stun her with a phaser. Excuse me.