Smugness Goeth Before a Fall

Oh, dang, I had about four inches before I discovered I was making a major mistake on the i-cord on each edge. No choice but to begin over again.

It's amazing how strong a tiny piece of fiber can be. I had used two short pieces of red yarn as markers. Tiny, tiny pieces of fiber I could hardly see had wrapped themselves around the strands, making it difficult to unravel. Finally had to get a sewing needle to break the marker yarn. Started over again. I should have known there was trouble ahead when I unpacked the kit and found FOUR sheets of instructions.

Okay, starting over again . . . cast on 66 stitches . . .

The Right Kind of Needles

It's amazing the difference the right needles can make with a knitting project. The yarn for the City of Fountains Scarf is -- well, the scarf describes the yarn as shimmering -- is indeed a chatoyant blue. So the right kind of needles for that color of yarn is not a reflecting green, especially not at night.

The only size 6 needles I had were an aluminum green. Not totally unusable during the daylight,  but totally unsatisfactory at night. So off to Momo's on Delaware in Leavenworth. I had hoped for a light color plastic, but what she had were medium dark wood.

The pattern has three differing sections, the first a checkerboard, the second an Arches Lace Stitch, and the third a Droplet Lace Stitch. Make two identical strips and put them together with the Kitchener Stitch. After the "Cast On" parties, maybe we'll finish with Kitchener parties.

Only one false start

So far, so good. I made only one false start on the City of Fountains Scarf. My late aunt who was my knitting mentor always admonished me to count . . . count . . . count. How could I have forgotten that sage advice?

After I established the accurate number of cast on stitches, everything was hunky-dory. Well, almost. It seems the edging is sort of a mock I-Cord, and the instructions for the two sides are different for the stitches in between. There are four pages of instructions. Count them, FOUR pages of instructions. I'll swear I read somewhere that the stitch that gets slipped to make the mock I-Cord is slipped purlwise. Now, there's an intriguing word . . . purl. Not pearl. But I digress. Ah, yes, here it is in ALL CAPS. No wonder I missed it. SLIP ALL STITCHES ARE IF TO PURL.

(Didn't I have at one time a writing coach who told me to always avoid AS IF?)

I'm so proud of myself for getting to about three inches with only one false start. What could possibly go wrong?

The Hardest Ever

This may be the most difficult piece of knitting I have yet attempted -- The City of Fountains Scarf. To quote from the creator, Cheryl Murray, "A celebration of the more than 200 iconic fountains of Kansas City. Bursting from their stone basins, jets of water fling sparkling droplets high in the air. Knitted in shades of shimmering blues, it's refreshing!"

Kits were available to members of the Sunflower Knitters Guild  https://www.sunflowerknittersguild.org/  prior to KITH (Knitting in the Heartland)   https://www.kithkc.com/  on April 17-19, 2020, in northern Johnson County.

The first reason I think this is a difficult project is because several "Cast on" parties have been scheduled. At which one presumes there will be someone who is expert in this pattern.

From the number of kits distributed at the morning meeting of SKG, I expect to see a lot of City of Fountains blue scarves. Wouldn't it be fun to have a group photo?

A New Decade

A New Year, a new decade, a new book about blogging. Written by Amy Lupold Bair. WordPress drove me crazy. Tumbler had its own perils. Blogger has been the less dense, which isn't saying much. I'll probably eventually delete this post, but in the meantime it lets Blogger know that I am still around.

Blogs Revisited

Dare I make a New Year's Resolution to resume blogging? Not without some further knowledge.

What I Did During the Eclipse -- I Got Weighed

No matter what, people will find a way to amuse themselves.

I wasn't very hopeful about actually seeing the eclipse. Weather predictions were not too encouraging.

And I wanted to stay in Jefferson County, so I went to Nortonville, the northernmost town in the county. Because of a railroad line that no longer goes through the town, Nortonville streets run on diagonals. (Do people who grew up in such towns live all their adult lives with a skewed perception of geography?)

Although nothing official was planned, people began to gather at the little city park (about three acres in size, I should judge). I think there were even some family reunions, which included the driver of a commercial vehicle (I'll never tell what the logo was on the side of the truck, but obviously the driver was not at work). Rain fell intermittently, and even when it wasn't raining, clouds covered the sky.

The only establishment open was a farm supply business. The weather-worn sign on the Brass Lion said the doors would open at 4 PM. (What a money-making opportunity the lion-keeepers overlooked). Well, the bank was open, but it did not appear that the tellers were selling anything edible.

So I was sitting in my car, tending to my own knitting, when I became aware that the crowd noise which had come from the park shelterhouse to my south was now at the west behind me. The couple from the car next to me shifted their attention from gazing skyward at the clouds and slowly drifted westward.

As I got out of my car I could see people, from moms carrying newborns to older folks with canes, were clambering aboard a huge truck weighing platform. When I first looked, the glowing red neon sign read at something over 9,000 pounds. "Oh," I exclaimed, a couple more people get on it will go to over 10,000." Then I climbed aboard and the scales shot up to 13,034!

Short story -- we never saw the eclipse, but we had fun anyway. The City Clerk took a picture which was published next week in the county newspaper.