I got to see my friend Tony today for the first time in a while. He had visited a sister out of state for Christmas. I have been missing him a lot. It was just great to see him.

He said that his knitted gifts went over well with his sisters and nieces. I am sure they did, they were very fine pieces. He’s a good knitter and he really does think about what the recipient likes.

I played some Tiny Tim for Tony on the way home from the airport. It’s pretty amazing music in any case, but my lovely New Beetle has a very good stereo so it is particularly amazing to listen in the car. We laughed and listened and talked a bit about unusual but brilliant performers. I tell you, Tony is good company.

We are going to get together on Friday morning. I am not sure if we’ll just sip tea in my kitchen or if we will be on the road doing a yarn crawl. I need to find 1) sport weight or DK weight yarn 2)preferably in non-wool blends, or if wool a very soft superwash. I’m doing some sox for a publication in sportweight, plus I am trying out my Singer HK100 knitting frame as a possible tool to make a bunch of socks for a friend who is sensitive to many wools.

I put fingering/sock weight yarn on the HK100 at the smallest setting and it came out to 6.33 stitches an inch. Now, this is a bulky machine so that is pretty amazing… but it is not a firm enough gauge for socknitting. It would make great baby clothes, perhaps.

So now I want some yarns a little thicker than fingering to try at that same smallest tension. I want to see what gauge I can get there, and then I can start (in January that is) try some sox on the machine with those yarns. I know my friend really does well with alpaca, so I’ll be looking for at least one nice alpaca either in my stash or at a yarn shop sometime soon. And anything else I can find that will make a good gauge on the machine.

My Kidz
Oh, another cool thing… I went to a local discount store (Value City) today looking for a pink slip or nightgown for underneath my upcoming mohair dress. (Thanks to Irene of Mid Michigan Knitting Guild who suggested that a nightgown might work if I can’t find a slip.) I had no luck finding a slip, but I found some other great items at great prices. The kids in line in front of me were fascinated about my socknitting (I get a lot of knitting done in lines, I tell you). The boy looked about 3rd grade and he kept saying it looked hard. I told him it wasn’t hard if someone explained it to you in just the right words so you could understand. That I’d taught kids as young as 5 to knit. And that he was welcome to come to my program at Foster Center.

Then the cashier piped up. She said her son learned to knit at Foster this summer, and then this Christmas he had made mittens for his baby brother. How cool is that? It turns out that she had a 5 yr old boy and a 9 yr old girl in my program this summer. The boy had some difficulty at first, as kids that age do. But the sister learned and helped the brother. And he figured out how to make mittens. How adorable is that? I encouraged her to send me a photograph so that I could put it on my wall by my room, where I have several of the pictures of my kidz that you guys see here on my blog.

Today I had 7 kids knitting. I taught two new kiddos how to knit for the first time. One didn’t get it enough to take hers home but she seemed to enjoy being there. The girl who made the wonderful purse last week was there, but she and several others left before I got a picture. The ones who stuck it out sure look pleased with their tiny bits of loopy fabric, don’t they? I think “my children” are absolutely beautiful! I’m sure you must agree.