Trip Delayed

I did not go to Chicago.  An hour before I was to leave for the airport, I cancelled the trip.  There was a mess here of people having appointments on a day when Jakey had no school and it was awkward for any of them to take him with them where they had to go.  I stayed here to take care of him while they all did their thing.   

It wasn't a big deal to cancel it as the only thing I had arranged was to have a contractor look at the bathroom that is partially out of commission and needs to have work done.  Between Thanksgiving, someone's birthday and more times when I have to be here for Jakey, I won't be able to reschedule my trip until early December.  It's so weird, I traveled much more during the past two years than I have this year.

It actually worked out okay as instead of giving over two days to travel, I've had the whole time to work on the edits of KNOT A GAME.  I also prefer working on my pc desktop rather than the Mac laptop.  It has progressed nicely and I have enjoyed going over it.  

The knitted project that the characters make in the book and the pattern included in the book is for a pair of hand warmers.  I had made a sample in plain yarn, but wanted to use self-stripping yarn in the book.  I ordered a cake of it online and didn't start making another sample of the hand warmers until I'd turned in the manuscript.  The whole point of self-stripping yarn is that it make whatever y our making have sections of different colors.  But, I discovered there was a problem with the hand warmers as I started on the second one in the pair.  Making a scarf works fine because it is one piece, but making a pair of something ends up with them blending, but not matching.  They start in different places of the colorway.

So, as I was going through the edit, I thought about changing the yarn to a solid color.  But then another solution occurred to me.  Crystal Smith is the one who handles the knitting workshop and she's known for her colorful clothes and that she wears unmatched earrings and socks that look nice together, but aren't the same.  The idea of a pair of hand warmers that blended but weren't identical would be absolutely to her liking.  I had to rewrite some sections to explain that and I added the option of using a solid color of yarn for those not as adventuresome.  And I started working on yet another pair of hand warmers in a solid color.  I love working on them in all the yarns.  I came up with an easy pattern that had ribs to make it interesting.  They are really useful too as a way to keep your fingers free to use your smart phone while keeping your hands warm.  Since there are more men at this retreat than the past ones, I wanted something unisex and these are.

I hadn't been knitting or crocheting for a while and it reminded me how much I love doing it.  There is something so satisfying about looking down and watching as a ball of yarn turns into something. Another favorite is taking elastic hair bands and crocheting around them to create colorful scrunchies.  

I am almost finished with going through the manuscript.  Then it's a matter of making one of the recipes again.  It's for sour cream biscuits and I'll probably have chef Jakey's help.  The whole family will take part in the tasting