Okay, I'll try this again!

Well, I jumped the gun (not an unusual event for me, to whom procrastination is some weird congenital anathema...but in my next life, I'm going to be not only a slacker but a night owl!) and posted too soon for the blog.

So...let's try again. Thanks, Barbara, for getting the ball rolling on this blog. Your mother's argyle sock is absolutely astonishing. I am sooooo far from that! I stand in awe. (And I have no doubt, as devoted a daughter as you were, that she knew how you felt, whether or not you said the words exactly as you would like to do now. We writers have a need to express ourselves in exactly the right words far more than others do. My husband often tells me, "I don't need to hear all the backstory and details, but I know you need to say them, so go for it.")

Also, I can't say that I like how real life denies me the perfect endings I write in my stories--and I must admit that the godlike power to create those just-right scenarios feels good, and I can't figure out why I can't have them all the time. ;)

Nancy, you're in good company--Jamie and I are also neophytes compared to the astonishing breadth of skill and knowledge people like Barbara and Fran and others possess. You don't have the corner on the market for dumb questions. I expect to ask about a bazillion. I, too, used to knit eons ago, then got on a needlepoint, then cross-stitch jag and am lately returned to knitting. (Okay, so I still have one cross-stitch Advent calendar to finish for my daughter, but I couldn't resist putting something on the needles, too.)

Thanks, Fran, for the intro to the Booga Bag. I'm knitting the first one out of a fairly pedestrian Lion wool...but yesterday, I found the Noro Kureyon you mentioned, so I grabbed several skeins to use once I make all my mistakes (hope, hope) on this first one. Since I've never felted, I can't wait to see how this turns out!

I have a question for you gurus, though. In the little shop where I found the Noro, there was a sample bag that had a pattern that seemed to have a portion knitted at a right angle, if that makes sense. It was very cool-looking, but I was pressed for time, and the shopowner was busy, so I couldn't ask about it. Anyone know what that might be called or have a sense of how to achieve it?

And Fran, I mentioned in my premature comment that I tried bamboo needles after all and am loving them. I loved even more, when I had the bag bottom formed and it was time to begin circular knitting, how the bamboo double points worked. They just seem to hold the yarn without slipping so much better than metal or plastic needles.

Okay...shutting up now! But it's sure fun to be here!

Jean