First off, I have to tell you how excited I am that people are reading this blog and posting comments. I feel a little less like I am talking to myself. I'm even more excited that a fellow knitter is commenting, and thank you for all your compliments.

A couple things I didn't mention in the last entry: I also use butter instead of vegetable shortening in the bagel recipe, and I ended up making the most amazing "blondies" for St. Martha's Guild. They were an experiment that turned out quite well. I had a blondie recipe from Fine Cooking, but really, all bar cookies need chocolate. Well, it called for dark brown sugar, and I only had golden brown, but I did have a little muscovado sugar, so I used a third muscovado to two thirds of the golden brown, then tossed in some bittersweet Belgian chocolate chips when I stirred in the pecans. They were quite chewy and rich and tasty. I will definitely make these again.

I had planned on finally making some progress on Alexander's baby book at St. Martha's, but left all the pictures and baby book at home. However, I brought along the christening cap, and made quite a bit of progress on that. We had a lot to be praying for, and lots coming up this month as well for the families of our church.

Since I am usually so bad at posting progress photos, I thought I'd toss a couple up here. This first one is of the first sleeve on Little Boy Green. I am just now at the raglan shaping, I will begin it tonight.



I had quite the knitty day on Saturday, first at St. Martha's Guild in the morning, then at the restaurant on the airport while I talked food with the owner and chefs, then that night at an Ultreya. By Sunday night, I had finished all the knitting on the main part of the cap. I need to block and sew the sides, then do the neck. The pattern says to do this triple crochet, but since I am so pathetic at crochet, and I can accomplish the same thing with K1P1 ribbing with an eyelet row for the ribbon, I am doing that instead. Here is the cap all layed out:



And here it is folded up so you can see a little bit of how it will look when it is sewn:



The pattern was marked for experienced knitters, but I haven't run into anything really difficult or complicated. The shaping is fairly basic, the lace is all simple repeats, nothing that can't be memorized, and it moved quickly. Either they figured anything on size two needles was for experienced knitters or anything lace was, or I am an experienced knitter. Yikes!

I have enough of the yarn left to make another one in the larger size, and may do so for Amira. I could probably make two more, really, and give the other to the NICU for a very special baby.

Oh, oh, oh! I have finally taught someone the knit stitch! I have helped enable other knitters who had been away from knitting before, but hadn't yet taught anyone to knit. There is a lady at our church who is part of St. Martha's and she does embroidery and needlepoint, but was interested in learning to knit. I had an extra set of needles and another person had some yarn, so I cast on about 50 sts for her and showed her how to knit. She did great! She really caught on, and is excited about learning. I was going to bring her some bigger needles and worsted weight yarn Sunday, but forgot, so I have them ready for her now along with a copy of Family Circle Easy Knitting and this year's Knit It!. I have them by the door so I remember to bring them to Bible Study tomorrow night to give to her then.

Poor Rich fell ill again this morning, so he stayed home from work. We're both pretty exhausted, so I think I will sign off for now.