To FLAK or not to FLAK...

I've hardly worked on the FLAK sweater at all the past few days. I did figure out how many stitches to pick up (same as Janet's, actually), picked them up and knit 2-3 rows. But wouldn't you know it, I lost parts 1-5 of the sweater instructions. Granted, I printed them out again, but the original ones had all my measurements, notes, etc. I can't figure out how they wandered far enough away from my knitting area to completely disappear, despite much searching. It'll be interesting to see where they eventually turn up. So tonight I measured myself again to figure out how far I could knit before joining to knit in the round (1.5"). We're off to visit my family this weekend, so I'll have about three hours knitting time in the car each way, unless DH gets sleep so I have to take a turn driving.

There were two articles in the local newspaper Monday about knitting! One was about a woman hoping to start a local chapter of a knitting charity. The other was about a knitting group at the senior home. It quoted the director of volunteer services as saying: "there are really not a lot of knitters anymore." Funny, I don't notice the lack. Just look at the umpteen number of internet blogs by knitters, knit-alongs, swaps, etc. I know quite a number of women at church who knit. The LYS is always full of people knitting and buying yarn. I noticed the A.C. Moore yarn section has exploded, and I hear that their knitting parties are packed. And last week when I took the car to the garage, I had the nicest chat with another woman in the waiting area who also knits (and weaves too!) Perhaps it's just that we're all too busy knitting things for ourselves and our loved ones (not to mention working, etc.) that we don't have time to do as much volunteer knitting as people used to. Granted, I have knit some hats for Afghans for Afghans, the Ship's Project, or the local Salvation Army mitten tree, but not as much as I'd like to do. I know I have a couple of UFOs somewhere to finish and donate; perhaps I should hunt them down.

Here are some goodies from a sale I went to on Wednesday: A pile of needlework magazines, mostly McCall's Needlework & Crafts from the 80's, a heap of knitting brochures and booklets, a couple of needlepoint books, and four small balls of yarn. I sorted though the booklets and only will keep the ones on the bottom. Perhaps I can sell the others on e-bay. I still have to try this. It was interesting just to look at the model photos--the ones from the 80's with big hair and bold makeup; the ones from the 60's with everyone at pool parties and barbecues, the women with Jackie-style hair, the men posing with a martini or pipe or golf clubs; the ones from the 50's where the women always had gloves on or in their hands. The McCall's magazines only have one or two interesting things in each one, so I'll probably clip what I want and pass the rest on to a friend (only so many entire magazines I can keep--and Vogue they're not!) There were some partly-made sweaters at the sale, all on stitch holders, no needles (unless some lucky person got to them before me!) and all the yarn except the slate-blue colored ball of wool was acrylic, and not good quality except for the small ball of baby yarn and the two small balls of bulky I took home. I like small balls of pretty colors; they're fun to use to make hats.

Well I'm off until next week--hopefully I'll have made enough FLAK progress over the weekend to make a good picture! (I'm also taking along my Celtic Christmas cross-stitch to work on--all it needs is the gold stitches and the beads to be finished, and a couple of sweaters to deconstruct. Nothing like keeping busy at mom's!)