ANOTHER VICTIM GRATEFUL RECIPIENT

I've found another person willing to wear a pair of ankle-warmers -- probably the most unconventional of all my nieces and nephews.

Not only is this person willing to wear a pair of ankle-warmers, he declares he's willing for all the world to see, and may even wear them OUTSIDE his trouser legs.

There's more: He might even be willing to wear OUTSIDE his trouser legs a pair of ankle-warmers with the colors of the local football team -- red and white. So I've knit up some in both colors, AND a special pair with red-and-white stripes.

This nephew lives several hundred miles away, which means I may never know if he makes good on his word, but in the meantime, he's wrapped me around his little finger.

WAITING IN QUEUE LINES

That's when I get my knitting done -- well, some of it.

I'm not like that dedicated Canadian knitter who carries a sock project with her wherever she goes and once lost a ball of fine blue merino yarn down an elevator shaft, but whenever I'm faced with making a telephone call that is likely to put me in a queue line the first thing I do is pick up a current project.

It's a bit of a trick to tuck the telephone under a shoulder, but once settled it does very little to slow down my pace. Normally, I wouldn't even mention that I'm knitting while I'm talking -- or waiting -- but once I got so angry at the transaction I snapped back at the service representative by telling her that I had already spent so much time explaining my problem to so many people I had been able to knit fourteen rows on a rather complicated shawl.

The last part was a lie -- I don't knit complicated things. The fourteen rows might have been an exaggeration as well, but I heard a little gasp and I knew she had gotten my drift. I regretted later that I had not asked the service representative about her current knitting project.

Maybe even given her my blog address.

CHECK MY LEGS

Well, figuratively speaking, and about ten months out of the year you'll find me wearing ankle warmers.

I HATE cold ankles.

Ankle warmers can be worn discreetly underneath (and virtually undetectable) pants' legs. Remember when Scarlet made herself a promise -- I'll never have cold ankles again?

DAY KNITTING AND NIGHT KNITTING

How can there be a difference, you ask.

Like most knitters, I often have more than one project going at the same time. Normally, I have one project downstairs next to my comfortable chair, and another upstairs next to my recliner. Never waste a minute.

Recently, in order to have the right size needles, I picked up a pair of metal -- I think it's aluminum -- needles, and rediscovered something I had forgotten since becoming accustomed to wooden needles. Because metal needles create less friction, they are much faster.

They do have a major drawback, regretfully. At night the shiny reflections can cause considerable eye strain, hence as long as I'm using metal needles, I'll be forced to divide my projects into day knitting and night knitting.

A SKEIN A DAY

I've figured out that if I did nothing but knit the entire waking hours of a day, I could knit a skein a day. That means no stopping to eat, drink, read the mail, or take a nap.

Of course, that would mean that no writing would get done, either.

LAWRENCE'S YARN BARN

The Yarn Barn in Lawrence was my destination yesterday. It's a rare opportunity I get to go there, but always delightful. It's about the most full-scale yarn shop I've ever seen, I mean, the real works, spinning, weaving, felting, makes me feel humble since I can only do garter or stockinette stitch on very simple projects.

(Well, my aunt, a master knitter, once made me do a sweater with cables, which I detested and have never done again.)

I was searching for Kansas yarn, and learned that there is no Kansas yarn produced in great quantities. The closest is the Brown Sheep yarn company in Mitchell, NE.

KNITTING MORE COMPLICATED

Well, I exaggerate. Shawls aren't really more complicated (oh, they can be, but then you have to start counting stitches).

The below-mentioned shawl in muted blues and greens turned out to have a lovely, fluid feel to it. The yarn was soft merino (which I think comes from a certain breed of sheep, but what do I know?) I took it to a planning meeting, and it was bought on the spot -- money to go into the treasury to pay for the convention.