Ruth - here are a few of my hexagons - I misspoke - I am crocheting these - I now have now completed about 20 of 80. I will certainly run out of leftover sock yarn before I am done, but will probably be able to buy some yarn for it.

I see it has been over a year since I posted - I am obviously not a dedicated blogger.

Many Babies and Great Progress

The good news is that 4 of the women attorneys in our office are expecting babies within a few months of each other. More good news is that the baby shower is Tuesday and I am done with those babies' hats and socks. The best news is that this is a total "non-event" in our workplace conversations, other than discussions of the happy coincidence of the timing and our warm wishes for the parents and little ones.

We are continuing to see progress for women and mom's in the workplace. Our firm has 26 women attorneys, most of whom are parents or will become so. When I started practicing law in Cedar Rapids in 1979, I know there were not 26 licenced attorneys in the entire town and whenever any one of them had a baby, firm managers and other observers predicted that the mom would depart the practice or, at the very least, become a less than "fully committed" attorney. Apparently that has not been the case.

I was so happy yesterday when my friend Sheila sent out an appeal just to the women lawyers she knew in town to raise funds for women displaced by the closing of our local YWCA. The 3 largest firms in Des Moines raised about $6,000 in about an hour and a half, and I think the radio station was pretty happy to hear about the good natured competition among the firms. I would be interested to hear how much was raised by one woman sending one email to her friends.

My main concern today is that the socks and hats fit the babies at some point - I do not guarantee that the socks and hat will fit at the same time. Too many variables.

Handmade Gifts

Here is Simon the cat enjoying the socks I knit the girls for Christmas. I have really liked knitting socks, and maybe the guys will have a surprise in their stockings next year - not as beautiful as these, but much larger!

I remember from my childhood both the stigma and the beauty of handmade gifts. My grandmother and mother were wonderful seamstresses, and I can remember so many homemade dresses. One in particular was a tangerine colored dress with an embroidered yoke, ruffled sleeves and a big sash around the waist. It is the most beautiful dress I have ever had, made by my grandma. That dress and others were, of course, handsewn of necessity, and having "homemade" clothes was not the special treat it should have been. I think of all the time mom and grandma spent sewing, after they did their regular work. I think they both liked it and mom, particularly, enjoyed the satisfaction of finishing an almost perfect garment. Those of you who know Ruth will recognize that she always worried about the imperfect details! I guess I will keep on knitting and giving away - maybe Simon needs his own handknit blanket to lie on so he won't bother other people's socks.

The Finished Scarf and New Years Resolutions

I completed the scarf in time to give as a Christmas gift - it turned out to be good enough to give away, and I look forward to many more long scarves in my knitting future.

One of my new years resolutions was to use up, or at least make a dent in, my stash of yarn before buying any new projects. It only took me 30 days to break that resolution. I did make it through a trip to Phoenix without going to Knitting in Scottsdale, and I have finished a couple of baby gifts and am almost done with a scarf from yarn in my stash for a year and a half. A Knitted Together gift certificate was burning a hole in my pocket, though, and yesterday after yoga I took a crocheted scarf pattern from a favorite book and bought yarn for a multi-colored crocheted scarf (the donee picked the pattern). It is crochet on a very long chain for not a lot of rows, so is better suited to my personality than the long narrow back and forth of many scarves. This is going to be an "at home" project, as there are 7 different colors. I will work on socks, scarves and baby gifts (all from my favorite stash) in my upcoming travels.

Knitting Scarves

I started this scarf last week. It is a beautiful cashmere yarn, purchased at the close-out sale of Creative Corner in West Des Moines, and the pattern was a bit of a challenge to learn. Now that I have the pattern figured out, I am starting to get the thought I always have when I knit a scarf. Am I done yet?? I know it will be beautiful and very soft. But I only have 8 inches done. The pattern is no longer challenging in the "am I good enough to figure it out?" way. It is just disruptive enough to keep me looking at the pattern every other row, so it keeps me from attaining that completely mindless state that easy knitting brings on.

I wonder whether this is a reflection of how I live my life. New projects and new challenges always keep my interest, but once the initial challenge is met, it takes a lot of perseverance to keep at it. I will finish it, because it will be a beautiful gift for someone, so long as I can continue to keep the white yarn away from the dogs and cats. I can't promise that I won't start the sweater for daughter Nikki in the meantime, though!

New Tricks for Old Dogs

This year I have been working on some projects on quite small needles, and find my knitting technique is causing some finger discomfort. Okay - I admit to having a pretty numb index finger. I use my own version of the continental knitting stitch and a throwing version for purl stitches. Some of my friends do a quick continental for both knit and purl; their fingers hardly ever touch the tips of the needles. Using the wonders of the internet, I have been watching the available demonstration videos and am pretty sure I will either learn the more hand healthy technique, or will go back to my old ways and live with the pins and needles in my finger.

Actually, the knitting part is getting to be a bit better for me, and I see some hope for improvement, but the purling - that is going to take some doing. Maybe it will be like some yoga poses - months of being unable to achieve a pose, followed by unexpted enlightenment and proper alignment. I'll keep working on it. More later.

Finished and Unfinished Projects

I finished a knitting project this weekend, and when doing some cleaning came across an unfinished embroidery project I must have started 25-30 years ago. It is in wonderful shape and is about 2/3rds complete. I enjoy the knitting process as much as the final product, and am a bit disappointed I remember nothing about the unfinished embroidery project. Did I like working on it? Did I put it down for a reason? Who was I making it for? The mystery of the day - will I ever finish it? Will I throw it away unfinished?

I hope I remember working on the knitting project I just finished. I bought the yarn for this beautiful shawl, shown on my profile picture, in Galena Illinois on a weekend trip with my girlfriends and our daughters. She was expecting our grandson, who is now almost a year old. I knit it in the car on visits to our children and granchildren, watching the 2009 NCAA basketball tournament, and when I should have been working on projects more pressing to my everyday life. The yarn (Noro Silk Garden) was such a pleasure to knit - it was luxurious, the vareigation in the colors was so beautiful, and the pattern was challenging but enjoyable. And the knots! The shawl was complete in the early spring, but it took me months to finish the knotted fringe. That's the way it always is for me. The finishing touches are the most difficult.