Mary aka Mary Poppins and her magic carpet bag

Sometimes I can't keep up with the banter between who's knitting what, what's happening on The View, politics, and random threads of conversation. It's like cross pollination the way the conversation zigs around the table.

Claudia put her blanket squares together and it looks great. She's going to bring it to the Nimble Thimble, a quilt shop in Port Chester, NY to see if they will put a fabric backing on it. It's a great idea and it will be good to know what shops are willing to do that.
She was working on her kid silk haze shawl (without much enthusiasm). When Shelly asked her how much more she had left, Claudia morosely showed her a nearly full skein. Needless to say she is not enjoying knitting with mohair.

Michelle shared her most recent Knitting Central Sock Club package. The yarn is gorgeous! It's called Lucy Neatby Celestial Merino sock yarn. I loved her color too.
She finished her lovely silk tunic. (The picture above is the back and the picture below is the front, although it could be worn .either way)I think if Robin chooses to make this, Michelle will be able to steer her clear of the pitfalls of implied information.
When Mary joined us she thought we'd been together for a while, we settled in so quickly. Upon noticing Michelle's sock yarn, she asked if it was that Cujo stuff. We were totally baffled until she said you know, the stuff on the back wall. The Koigu! That had us bursting out laughing.

I almost had to separate Mary and Michelle, they got totally tangled up in their yarns, it was like going fishing for tangled lines.

Mary had me hopping today with her magic bag. Man, she pulled out project after project. The first thing we looked at were different choices for the garter band on her meter-mitered vest. The yarn we all liked needed to be rolled. I offered to hold it for her and out came her ball winder!!! It still took three of us to wind the skein though. After a little jockeying into position, we settled into Michelle holding the skein, Mary winding the yarn, and I held the ball winder in place. It didn't quite fit the table. The fuzz was flying and Michelle got her upper body workout!

After the mitered vest, she pulled out squares for her "Warm Up America - Greenwich" project. Robin thought they were wash clothes (which they could very well have been).
Rather than submitting the squares to the national organization, her group is going to vote on who to give the finished blanket to. I look forward to hearing more details. This program is a great way to help people and you can use up small yardages of stash. Each square is 6 x 6 inches.

Next out of the magic bag was a combination snood (head band) and neck warmer. She's making it out cotton chenille by Crystal Palace. It's supposed to be knit in the round. They implied this rather than said it, so Mary knit it straight. After the ribbing she realized it should be knit in the round and kind of worked two kind of random connecting rows that didn't quite do the trick (A for effort though). Michelle wanted her to rip it out and start over, Mary would have none of that. I got her disconnected and connected in the round. She'll just sew the ribbing closed later.

It was funny because upon realizing that all she had to do was knit in the round for the remainder of the neck warmer, she said "that's it? I didn't know it was easy, did you know it was easy". I didn't when she bought it, and when I looked at the pattern as we worked on it, I noticed that it was marked "easy". Well Mary, there's your easy project that you can talk and knit with!

And yet another project came out of the magic bag. I love a woman who comes prepared! She wanted to learn how to make bobbles for a scarf in the new Twinkle book. We worked on the bobbles and here were her two first practice bobbles.
Well, you can imagine the comments this evoked. Robin looked over and said "What are you doing now?" Mary answered "you never know what I know. I'm making boobs!". Needless to say it went down hill from there. In the end, we decided it would've been a bust enlargement for barbie! If she does make this scarf, I'll never be able to think of it as anything other than the boob scarf!

Robin was working on her baby sweater for a while and then she wanted to start the baby hat to match the booties. To say she was not pleased when I asked her to a gauge (and a mock circular gauge at that). This was to be her first foray into knitting in the round and the mock circular gauge did not encourage her. She made it to maybe two inches and had just about had it. We went over how to do the long tail cast on with two skeins or yarn (or the inside strand and outside strand of one ball). I'm going to add this instruction to techniques soon.

Shelly came in ready to start a baby sweater and her gauge was off. That gauge word really is a tough thing. I asked her to make another swatch and afterwards, settled on what needle to use.

I don't enjoy doing gauge swatches either, the difference in size and fit makes it really important. The last thing any of us want is to have to reknit a whole garment or put it in the parking lot because the gauge was off and the garment comes out wrong. (I hear you all groaning at me - I'm getting on my soap box and expounding the virtues of gauge.)

When it was nearly time to leave, we all heard a buzzing noise (Mary's phone). Mary exclaimed "Wow, it's moving!". Mary you add a lot of joy and laughter our lives! It was a great closing note.

Oh, and Danielle, we talked about your absence and Mary figured you were at the hospital. We gave serious thought to going to the hospital, our knitting in hand and sitting around you for moral support and knitting through your labor. That would've been quite a sight! Who loves
you?!