I love Fearless Knitting!  I love the challenge, the excitement, the learning, the expectations, the problem solving.  What I didn't anticipate was the massive amount of time a project that can be described as fearless takes.  I have been working on something that was to be my next post.  After all, how long can it take?!?!?! That was 3 weeks ago and I'm not there yet.  I realized "YIKES!" I haven't written on Knitting: A Love Story in a very long time.  Then I started to panic, "What am I going to write about?  How am I ever going to finish this in a week?"  That week has stretched into more.  Then I had a thought. . . 

When we had our flood Labor Day weekend, Dick and I frantically threw things into tubs and that included knitting and yarn.  Just maybe there was something in one of those tubs.  

I climbed my stairway to heaven to the Stash Studio to see what I could find.  I took a deep breath and walked through the tubs and skeins and balls that haven't been organized in a very long time.  I've got to get to that.  Just when I think I've got a big chunk of time to begin work, life crawls into my chunk.  I can't even tell you what a huge job I have up there!  I began going through tubs and I found it.   A tub full of almost finished projects and I found the perfect treasure to finish and write about.  It's called Fever Dreams and I bought it from Kitterly one of the online shops I just can't say "no" to.  

This was so much fun to knit and the yarn was so amazing.  The yarn is from Spincycle Yarns.  It is yummy to touch and the colors are amazing.  It has kind of a Roy G Biv thing going on and you know how much I love rainbows.  Well, are you ready for the unveil!?!?!?!?!

It's not exactly Roy G Biv.  It's more like Roy G T (red, orange, yellow, green, teal).  If you think this looks great, wait until you see it on Lydia.  

Lydia does make everything look better.  My old boss just passed away.  I decided to give his widow a treasure from my treasure chest.  Well, it's really a shawl from a tub but who would quibble over that.  I know Barb will love this and I feel good about sharing.  This is kind of becoming a tradition with me, giving a friend a piece of me when she becomes a widow.  I think I like that.  

Opening this tub so brightened my world, I think I will open one tub a week and see what I find.  Get ready for some surprises! 

We're home from our glorious 10 days at the Coastal Condo, and I was just reflecting on how different things are from the way it used to be there.  "How," you think, "can this possibly have anything to do with Knitting: A Love Story?!?!"  When we decided to purchase a condo after 6 years of renting the Coastal Cottage, we made a list of what we wanted.  I know, I love lists and just had to make one.  After much discussing, feeling a sense of community became our first priority. So really we were looking for a 3 bedroom condo on a golf course where you can see water that feels like a community.  Each of our criteria eliminated properties off our list until we had only one, Sea Trail in Sunset Beach, NC.  

This was one of our reasons for purchasing the condo we did.  This wonderful room is perfect for reading, knitting, playing bridge and listening to nature. Almost immediately we found bridge groups, that made us both happy.  Of course, Dick had already experienced the wonderful golf courses. I had discovered Knit 'N Purl as my local yarn shop. But something was missing.  I still felt like a vacationer, a visitor.  Then this January, I found it.

I found friends at the big knitting table at Knit 'N Purl.  In past years, I've knitted at the big table in that social way that knitters love but I was a stranger.  I didn't know anybody's name and nobody knew mine.  I was searching for that feeling I get when I knit with Linda or Thea.  I was craving that push knitting friends give to each other to buy that yarn when you don't need it, just because you love it.  I was missing the conversation that goes something like: "Have you seen this pattern."  "No, I haven't but it spectacular."  "It looks hard, but let's try it."  "Ok, why don't we knit it together."  I've had that conversation hundreds of times with Linda but not with someone at Knit 'N Purl.  This year it happened.  I found two knitting buddies and then a third that run with me to the edge.  If we don't jump, at least we peak over.  

I finally got to the place at Knit 'N Purl to quote Cheers "Where everybody knows your name.  And they're always glad you came.  You want to be where you can see that troubles are all the same.  You want to go where everybody knows your name."  This time at the condo I heard an audible click, and things fell into place. I have a place to go to feed the yarn hunger, where staff greet me by name and remember what I was knitting the last time I was there.  That would be you Molly and Martina. I have friends I look forward to seeing.  Friends who encourage when you need it and discourage when appropriate.  Ok, Jane and Viv and Linda, you know I'm talking about you. Thank you for helping to make a condo a home.   

We have had a glorious week at the Coastal Condo except for my Spartans getting beat in the Final Four.  Dick and I have gone to many Final Fours but this year we decided to celebrate in peace and quiet at our favorite home away from home.  Well, to be honest, I'm not too sad.  After all we beat Michigan 3 times AND beat Duke to get into the Final Four.  I have been very busy here knitting for a very special person.  Michelle is a knitter at Ann's By Design.  Two years ago she taught herself to knit and there has been no stopping her.  She is a regular at the round table of social knitting on Fridays.  In the fall, Michelle told us she was pregnant and due in March.  March seemed like such a long time into the future.  When we were at the Coastal Condo in January, I decided I needed to find the perfect yarn for a baby cocoon.  This is what It found.

I fell in love with the yarn then found the pattern for the cocoon.

Then I fell in love with it more and decided to do a headband.

Then I fell in love with it even more and decided to design a baby blanket.  My last trip to Knit 'N Purl in January was to purchase enough of the Comfort and Baby Bamboo to make a baby blanket.  I got the Comfort but they didn't have enough Baby Bamboo AND IT WAS A DISCONTINUED COLOR!!!!!!  Martina came to the rescue.  She said she would go through her distributor to see what other shops had purchased that color and maybe she could find enough.  We left the Coastal Condo, winter started and I decided to finish Mosaic Mania.  I forgot all about the Baby Bamboo and the beautiful blanket I was going to make for Baby Rose.  One day a package came.  I wasn't expecting anything but there is such a thing as backorder.  I looked at the address; it was definitely a yarn shop but not one I'd ever heard of.  I was flummoxed to say the least.  I opened the package and there was Baby Bamboo.  Out of the blue, Baby Bamboo.  Remember how much I love literation and rhyming?  I really did get side tracked from Baby Rose's gifts.  There was Mosaic Mania and the Dissent Cowl.  But Michelle wasn't due until March.  All of a sudden, it was March and Michelle was having a baby.  I decided I better get to work.  We had an impromptu baby shower the first time Michelle and Rose were able to come in.  What a great surprise!  The blanket wasn't finished but the headband and cocoon were.  On the way down I pretty much finished the baby blanket.  After we were at the Coast I hid the ends.  And this is what it looked like.

I started in the corner with five stitches and added one stitch on each side every other row.  The pattern is a simple mosaic: 2 rows of baby bamboo in garter stitch, 4 rows in Comfort with K 3 SL1 across.  When it was as wide as I wanted I began to decrease 1 on the left side every other row.  When it was as long as I wanted I decreased 1 on both sides every other row.  When I was finished I decided I wanted fufu around the edge and the remedy was to pick up stitches around the edge then bind off in picot bind off.  Wait!  What if I got my stitches picked up and bound off only to discover I had too few stitches and it pulled or too many stitches and it bunched?!?!?!?!  I love to create my own solution to knitting puzzles.  I also was concerned that one small ball of Baby Bamboo wouldn't finished the picot bind off and I'd have to add another ball.  A join on the edge of the blanket wouldn't be a good thing.  My solution was: I picked up stitches along one edge, attached another ball and did the picot band off.  After I was done, I spread the blanket out to see how the stitches looked.  To quote the three bears, "They were just right."  I counted the stitches and went onto the next side.  I picked up stitches, did picot bind off and checked how it looked.  Now I knew exactly how many stitches I needed to pick up on the other two sides.  WaLa!

Now that my gift giving knitting is done, I can go back to my Fearless Knitting.  Wait until you see what I have been working on!  I can't wait to see Baby Rose tucked in her cocoon, wrapped in her blanket with her headband.   

I think of myself as a strong woman.  I grew into womanhood reading Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan, Erika Jong and many more.  I love women who go where no woman has ever gone, who use our unique leadership style and break the glass ceiling.  I've written before about my friend Toni (may she rest in peace) who was the strongest woman I have ever known.  It seemed only right to celebrate strong women by knitting an object honoring one of our strongest women, Ruth Bader Ginsberg.  

I found this pattern (probably on Pinterest) and immediately fell in love.  It honors RBG and her famous Dissent Collar.  To quote the pattern designer Carissa Browning, "This top-down cowl was inspired by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's famous (and infamous) collar, worn when she dissents from a decision by the Supreme Court." There are also Dissent Pins.  Their blurb says "The standard Robe is made for a man because it has a place for a shirt to show and a tie, so Sandra Day O'Connor and I thought it would be appropriate if we include as part of our robe something typical of a woman."  I love it. 

After I found the Dissent Cowl, I decided I not only needed to knit it, I needed to develop a class for Ann's By Design.  I want our ABD knitters to celebrate strong women and honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  I began searching the yarn at ABD for the perfect yarn.  The pattern calls for DK and I really didn't see anything I thought was perfect, something that would adequately honor the Dissent Cowl and RBG.  I did find Happy Feet Sock Yarn but it was way too light a fiber to knit to gage.  I didn't want the Dissent Cowl to be a doll or pixie accessory, so I began to plot.  Somewhere in a knitting class I learned how to combine light yarn to create heavier yarns.  Finally, I found it.  Two strands of sock yarn may knit to DK gage if you are lucky.  I think I would call this a "Yarn Hack."  I took my 2 strands of sock, combined it with Cascade 220 Superwash which is a lite worsted and set off to see if it would work.  After experimenting with different needles, I GOT GAGE!  That sounded a lot like YOU'VE GOT MAIL.  What I did perfectly exemplifies "knabbling"  which is my word for dabbling in knitting.  But to move on to the actual product of my plotting and knabbling, TA-DA, here it is.

Notice the top of this cowl.  After that notice how perfect my double strand of Happy Feet works as a DK.  Now watch this.

The polka dotty top folds down inside to form a lining.  Genius!  You never see the wrong side of the kitting.  I love that.  When I wear this, I will think of all of the strong women I admire who led the way for me and hope I am in my own way doing it right.