Touch and Go

That's what they call those airplane practices where the pilot touches down, but only briefly, before taking off again. Right? That's what I feel like right now. Though I did extend the ground time by rescheduling my appointments in Knoxville. Instead of tomorrow they're a week or so away. So I can stay home tomorrow and pack, heading out again on Thursday, to return on Tuesday evening. I'll spend the Easter weekend with my friend Jenny in Herndon, VA, along with her mother Jean Ann. I know Jenny and Jean Ann from my years in Florida.

David has likewise landed. He's off the Colorado River, has raft packed and is heading east. We will meet again on Tuesday evening. Hurray! My sweetie returns.

I am now a hot water fan. Not for everything, of course. But definitely for white sheets. Pre-treat with Oxy-Clean, and add it to the wash water. White sheets again! Normally I wash everything in cold water, for energy conservation and because it works OK for normal clothes. But I've been sleeping on dingy sheets for a while, and I finally said ENOUGH!! Today they got washed on hot, and by golly, they're white again, and LOOK clean! Ahhhhh. Which is good. This bed takes a good bit of energy to make and re-make, so I don't do it as often as I should. But today, it's good and worth the effort.


Note the steps. I need them to get into/on the bed. Note also the bins and bag UNDER the bed. Stash.













So I'm enjoying being at home again and the kitties are liking it, too.

But I had a great week at the John C. Campbell Folk School. I knitted mittens all week. And learned more technique than I could have imagined. Beth Brown-Reinsel is an extraordinary teacher, and I feel so lucky to have spent another week under her tutelage.





















First up were our Selbu Norwegian mittens. I really like these, especially some of the little elegant touches, like the side edge stitches and how they close up at the top of the mitten. I'll make the mate to this one.
























Then, on to Swedish twined (two-end) knitting. Tedious and slow and kind of a pain, but gorgeous! I can see myself doing small, very small, portions of this. I've ordered Beth's lovely sock pattern using this techinque - we'll see if I ever make myself do it again. The problem is that, when done in the traditional way, the yarn gets twisted so much that you have to stop every round or two and untwist it. Now, there's a special technique for doing that, but still, one must stop knitting and DO it.







After that, the colorful Latvian mittens. What you can't see here are the really neat braids. They're done with the twined knitting techniques, and are a real pain, but very much worth the effort. I also added fringe, hated it and ripped it out. No fringe on my Latvian mittens ever! I opted for a child's size, since time was growing short and for once I wanted to finish my projects in time for "show and tell."















When we weren't knitting, we were able to appreciate a Southern Appalachian spring.


Tomorrow - back to New York!