Granny Time

So much to do, so little time. It has been almost a month since the last posting. Life is busy, life is full of stuff.

A great treat today -- my daughter-in-law and granddaughter showed up at our door at 10AM. It has been more than 2 years since I last saw them. At that time they lived in Hawaii, and they came for a visit (with my son). Now they live in Mississippi, but son had to stay home at his job, so we had the great pleasure of a full day with the two of them. The whole family went to the park (not terribly exciting just to say, but a perfect piece of Americana, and just wonderful for taking pictures and talking, talking, catching up, and talking). One daughter had to leave for work, so there is a gap in the family portrait.

The past month has been the usual round of dialysis, doctors appointments, more dialysis, and more doctors appointments. On the up side, I have been spending countless hours knitting in waiting rooms and have finished DH's Fair Isle Vest.

Here it is being blocked:

Here is a detail shot of the pattern itself:

If it looks really intricate, rest assured that it is. Judicious enlargement of the teeny tiny detail chart, lots of stitch markers, and religious use of a row counter are mandatory! The big sweater chart (row-by-row) was less than useless. Enlarging it to full size made the details too blurry to see, and there were some serious mistakes in the written pattern. Its only use was for the starting row, which was row 4 of the pattern detail. I am totally clueless as to the reasoning behind this, it makes no sense at all.

If you are going to go to this much work, I think it pays to make the inside as nice as the outside and enclose the edges of the steeks. There is an excellent explanation of this at www.kidsknits.com. Not difficult to do at all, and you end up with the insides looking like this:

Voila, one work of art.