What to do Part 2

As I said in my previous post of August 29, 2012 beside commercial yarn, we have also accumulated a significant stash of hand spun yarn over the past ten years.  All the hand spun yarn is the creation of my youngest daughter.  Mother does not spin.  The ability to have my hands and feet do different things at the same time eludes me.  Therefore, the use of a spinning wheel is out of the question.  I am also useless at spindle spinning even with my tongue sticking out and, believe me, my daughter can do an entire comic routine around observing my attempts at spindle spinning.  It isn't a pretty picture.

The second result of using up hand spun yarn is a giant, warm and crazy zippered cardigan which will serve me well during Michigan winter months.  I used the basic pattern for a bottom up Raglan sweater from The Sweater Workshop by Jacqueline Fee.  And here are the results.  Remember I did emphasize crazy.

And the spinner in the family is modeling the concoction.

The next project using up hand spun yarn is already finished.  The shawl is awaiting a good soaking and blocking. 

Knit on Merrily!

Fifty Years in the US and I forgot

No one reminded me in the month of June that I have now lived in the United States for 50 years.  I arrived in NYC in June of 1962, 22 years old, pregnant, and knowing little about the US.  My only asset was that I spoke fluent English with a very British accent.  My itinerary told me that I would arrive at the Columbus, Ohio Airport 1/2 hour after take off from Idlewild (now JFK) Airport.  Of course, no one had explained to me that there was a one hour time difference between New York and Ohio and, therefore, the flight actually lasted 1-1/2 hours.  The turbulence started over Pittsburgh and I threw up from that point to landing in Columbus.  I wonder if the fellow sitting beside me ever recovered from that experience?  At that time women who were pregnant were only allowed to fly up to a certain time.  I was just under the time limit.  Between being sick and apologizing to the fellow next to me, I had to continuously assure the flight attendants that I was not dieing, but only suffered from "all day sickness," a curse which I endured during all three pregnancies.  I was met by my husband, a newly discharged Air Force veteran, in Columbus, Ohio. As we drove away from the Airport toward our new home in Lancaster, Ohio, I was overwhelmed by the width of the road (US33) on which we traveled.  Roads just weren't that wide in Europe and the darn thing was flat as a pancake and straight on top of it.  No careening around mountains, just a flat wide road and the drivers were sooo polite.  Life in America had started.  It has had its ups and downs, but overall life has been good to me. Yet, I still miss a good loaf of real German bread and the dark green honey from the Black Forest and the smell of its pine trees and, of course, "Maultaschen," the pirogis of Poland or gnocchis of Italy in their Swabian form. 

Knitting content coming later.