It's Linda's Turn!

I have shared many stories with you about friends I have knit for, now I want to share that wonderful friend I knit for and with, Linda Kaufman. Linda and I have so many knitting stories. We have taken classes together, knit in coffee shops and restraunts and taught classes. I have to admit that Linda is a much better knitting teacher than I am.  Linda is an elementary principal who was once the world's best first grade teacher.  She is so kind and patient.  Linda and I taught a couple of knitting classes for her elementary school students.  Linda knits with her right hand and I knit continental (or left handed as Linda would say.)  One of our first questions is "Who here crochets?"  We've found those people pick up continental very quickly.  Our first class had a third grade boy who had been a first grader of Linda's and his mom, a kindergartener and her great grandmother and a couple more girls and their moms and grandmothers.  I left exhausted.  They move so fast!  When I got home Dick asked me how it went.  I said, "Fine.  Nobody cried including me!"  Linda and I had a wonderful series planned full of telling stories, having treats and exploring yarn.  

Of course, Linda has a Jan Bag. It is made from her favorite Noro colorway. It looks like Spikey likes it, too. Linda's son Joe gave Spike to Linda and named him Squirt. Linda renamed him Spike because she really wanted a dog (hint! hint!). It wasn't long before Linda had Chip, a Chocolate Lab. Both Chip and Spike love yarn.

Linda and I took the Stash Buster class from the marvelous Martina at Crafty Lady. I came away learning the Magic Ball and Linda made this fabulous Stash Buster Sweater. After I fell in love with Linda's sweater from the class (it practically felted from all of my drool), she made this one for me for Christmas. What a great friend!  You start at one sleeve and continually change yarns and stitches until you reach the opposite sleeve and bind off.  There is a yarn in this sweater from Linda's Mom who is deceased.  It means so much to me that Linda shared that special yarn with me.

Check out the buttons! Absolutely one of a kind! Linda had her friend Barb make these lamp work buttons. Barb and I were in the same lamp work class. I was so geeked! I had my own goggles and blowtorch. My plan was to make buttons for everything I knit. (Does this sound like my plans for woven/knitted garments?!?!?) In the class I made one bead that was kind of beadlike, one that was a blob and one that looked like a freeform chicken. I am not a button maker just as I am not a weaver. I guess I better stick with what I love--knitting.

Linda received my very first Bubbles Scarf.  I was knitting it during our social knitting time.  The first scarf was the Kauni rainbow on one side and a cream on the other.  One day Linda said, "I really like that but I would make it Kauni on both sides."  So, I gave my Mom that first scarf and made Linda the scarf she really wanted.  She was right!  It is spectacular.  Thanks to Linda I am a Kauni collector.  Kauni yarn is all beautiful.

Linda is so funny.  She always makes me laugh.  One of our unique friendship traditions is going together to the Gynocologist and for mammograms.  It really gives us an excuse for visiting a yarn store.  Linda and I are attracted to very different yarns.  You know what I like and Linda is teal, teal, teal.  When we are looking in a LYS, we always find yarn that the other one can't live without.  I have many skeins of Linda recommended yarn.  Before Linda and I started knitting together, she always finished one project before she started the next.  I taught her the TBFL (To Be Finished Later) concept and helped her get over the guilt associated with it.  

Linda is kind, generous, funny and quirky.  All fabulous qualities in a friend.