Too Much of a Good Thing Is Wonderful

I'm the one on the left.

When I taught Susan to knit, during the last 30 minutes of her visit to Chicago in July, I wrote the following in a blog entry:

I won't be heartsick if she doesn't keep up with it, but I sure hope she does. Between her first row and her final row there was a decided increase in speed and agility, and I swear she got that look in her eye. You know the one I mean.

For once, I was right.

Yarn Crawl, Part Two

We turned my Christmas visit, which was wonderful in many ways, into an extended yarn crawl. In addition to these three, the day after Christmas our mother joined us for a trip to:

• Korner Knitters (2 Fort Hill Road, Standish). Extremely friendly service. A really good selection of mid-price and luxury yarns at (mostly) 10% below suggested retail. And they have what they call the Kloseout Kitchen. What sort of stuff do you find in the Kloseout Kitchen? How about enough Jo Sharp Silk Road Aran to make a sweater, for under 50 bucks. How does that sound to you? Sound good? Yeah, I thought so.
  

The day after that, we signed Susan up for the Maine Stitch 'n' Bitch Yahoo group. And we saw a notice of a new yarn store opening. Susan said we needed to go. So we visited:

• Knit One Fiber Artistry (91 Tandberg Trail, Unit 6, Windham). If you like the yarns of Knit One, Crochet Too, you probably know they moved from California to Maine in the mid-90s. They just (in November) opened up a retail shop in front of their headquarters. Driving by, you might miss it. It doesn't look like much - a small storefront on an industrial building. Inside, the picture brightens considerably.
  
  The main room has a knitting area with sofas, and shelves with (it seems) the whole line of Knit One, Crochet Too yarns. I knew about Parfait, thanks to Jon, but Susan and I also liked the looks (and feel) of Paint Box and Douceur et Soie. They've got a large selection of reduced yarns–samples, odd-sized skeins, and discontinued stuff.
  
  They sell patterns, too, many of them designed by the firm's current owner, Hélène Rush. I don't know much about Ms. Rush, but I like her designs. This is the first yarn shop I've seen in which almost all the knitted samples on display looked like something I would knit. No little praise, since I'm finding I seldom seem to be able to stick to somebody else's pattern.
  
  The service here was, once again, splendid. The saleswoman (whose name I regret I forgot to ask) was enthusiastic and helpful without being pushy.

That's five (great) yarn stores in five (great) days. I'm still winded.

Purl of Mother

Mom has been reading both our blogs for ages, and indicated that she, too, might like to knit. She learned a long time ago, she said. I couldn't remember her ever using knitting needles, so I figured it must have been a very long time ago.

As one of her Christmas presents, we got her set up with a pair of bamboo needles and a ball of Lorna's Laces Shepherd's Worsted. We had a short introduction to casting on, and then suddenly she was knitting. English style.

I learned to knit Continental, and that's how I taught Susan. And now it turns out our own mother is English. It's rather like the owl that hatched the cuckoo, only in reverse.

Before we knew what was happening she'd done about five inches of a ribbed scarf.

This means the knitters in my immediate family now outnumber the non-knitters three to two. I wonder if we could interest my father in sheep herding?