TGIF

Mary, Elizabeth and I met at Cosi's. Elizabeth had the first sleeve of the Debbie Bliss sweater done. The bodice and sleeves have really interesting patterning. She's finding ripping things out unfortunately coming too easily. I give her a lot of credit to keep persevering. Since it's a short sleeved sweater she should be able to enjoy wearing it before the weather turns cold for the season.

The body to Elizabeth's sweater was done all in garter and gave her "mindless" knitting time. I think it's important to have one project going that you don't have to concentrate to heavily on. It gives you a project to switch to if you have a problem, you can talk and knit when it's not intricate, and you can watch TV and relax. We all need some downtime where we are relaxed and happy. I find if I don't put the TV on and I sit and knit quietly, it's meditative. I'm thinking of establishing a mandatory unplug time at my house!

Mary is working on a lace poncho in Cherry Tree Hill Ariel yarn. It's a beautifully variegated blue yarn. She's looking for a worsted weight cotton to make an the Manos afghan in. We looked through the Patternworks catalog and didn't see anything that would work.

While we were knitting, Mary noticed that Elizabeth and I knit differently than she does. We knit Continental and she knits American (or throwing). We dubbed this our knitting nationalities! :) I actually learned by throwing the yarn and taught my self Continental knitting a few years ago. I find my tension is more even and I knit faster. Elizabeth was taught Continental.

We talked about the current controversy regarding whether listening to a book tape is still reading. Personally, I love listening to books on tape because it allows me to continue to enjoy books and knit at the same time or listen to while I'm in the car instead of the radio. I can see where people would say that listening to a book isn't the same as reading it, however, who is it hurting? If someone is listening to a book they are still choosing to involve themselves with literature and that's a good thing!

Well, on that note, we talked about two books that were great on tape because of the narrator's voices.