Good knitting deed of the day

On the train going down to work today, I was approached by a woman - oh, probably in her eighties somewhere - who had been watching me work on my Garden Shawl project and wanted to know about the yarn I was using for it. Fortunately, she got off at my stop, so we were able to keep the conversation going even after I left the train.

Turns out she is a long, loooong-time knitter. She talked about doing fair isles and also that she had ALMOST convinced her mom to buy up a yarn store business for her when she was seventeen. (Apparently the reason her mom didn't cave was a fear that her daughter would never meet men if she worked at a yarn store...both of us had a good chuckle over that.) But - get this - she quit knitting, because she couldn't find any good yarn or knitting books, and figured nobody was doing knitting anymore.

!!!

Needless to say, I set her straight. I rattled off all the Toronto LYSes I could think of off the top of my head (Lettuce Knit - which she'd even been to, when it first opened! Romni Wools - which she'd also visited but was confused by its largeness; The Naked Sheep, Knitomatic, The Knit Cafe, The Knitting Place.) I told her about the profusion of knitting books, the increased popularity of knitting, the emergence of knitting stores as souces for classes and knitting get-togethers (I really could not bring myself to call them stitch-and-bitches in her presence). I talked about the vibrant community of knitters to be found online (alas, she does not Internet).

In short, I got her thoroughly charged-up. She confessed to me that she has felt lost without the knitting - that something vital was missing from her life. She seemed delighted that it sounded like there was still something out there for her, and thanked me very much.

I totally think she's going to get back into it. I'm so happy about this, I feel like jumping up and down. To heck with Boy Scouts helping old ladies cross the street...I help them get back into knitting! :)

Another exciting thing is all the comments I've been getting with the recent increase in traffic. (Unsurprisingly, the numbers have gone down as time moves on, but even yesterday I got 388 hits and am at 138 so far today as I write this. Happily, this has all been accompanied by increases in the number of visits from repeat visitors, which I like very much indeed.) Dianne R. in Florida and Julie commented that they might keep reading, which is great! Welcome, ladies!

Carol, on the other hand, found me through a Google search for "Cape Cod" (because of this project) and commented with some advice for avoiding laddering for the sleeves of my Twizzle project. Sadly, I am already using the technique she recommended (approaching the new needle with the working needle under the just-finished needle), so it's really just a matter of imperfect tension. I do get the feeling that the cotton is making it harder than if I were using another fibre, and I agree with Tallguy and Carrie K that eventually washing and wearing will even it all out.

And finally...yeah, Gill, I'm not surprised to hear that your life is revolving around the whole eat-sleep-poop thing right now. Hang in there - pretty soon he should start giving a little back in the way of interaction and, y'know, caring that you exist. :)

Garden Shawl for MIL

The edging keeps going...and going...and going. Wanietta advised me to stay strong and the edge will sneak up on me and finish itself. I have to say that I have also noticed this phenomenon on knits that look like they're going to last forever. This one, however, is still in that on and on and on stage.

Stornaway sweater for DH

Thank you so much for your compliments on this, Carrie K. I'm very pleased myself with how it's all going - I whipped it out on my lunchbreak today and hit the halfway point of the back.

Socks for DH's boss

This is a project that I keep forgetting to mention that I've started. Last weekend I got my husband to try on the black socks that I made for my dad to see how they fit. (Yes, they are for my dad, but I made them the same size as I would for DH because they both seem to have the same length of foot and girth of calf.) DH said they were more snug than most of the other socks I'd knitted for him (likely because the yarn is a little thinner than all the other sock yarn I've used). So, based on that, I've decided to make the foot girth for these socks a little wider than usual to accommodate his boss' feet, and to make the legs quite a bit wider because DH thinks the guy's calves are probably much bigger than his own. Subsequently, I cast on for the first sock, but so far have done precious little else. However, I can at least say that the project is officially started.