We are having such lovely fall weather in Connecticut! It was such a gorgeous day – blue skies, leaves of brilliant shades, and fresh, cool air.

I took a trip to “the mall” today! I hadn’t been to the mall in so long that I had no idea that the Filene’s is now a Macy’s! But that was ok because basically everything was the same. Well, I do think there were less service desks. I forgot about the waiting. Almost everyone in front of me today had some sort of issue either with a credit card or a return where their uncle ran off to Siberia with their sales slip.

Anyway, I bought a new outfit and got my hair cut in preparation for the wedding we will be attending tomorrow. You know, I was thinking, in general, all husbands have to do to get ready for weddings is to know what they are going to wear and plot out the directions to get to the event. Wives have to RSVP, decide what everyone else is going to wear (and with 3 girls that is a lot! I’m still working on the shoes!). Pick a present, and a card and make sure that they are perfect and also perfectly presentable. The wives have to make sure that everyone looks nice with their hair brushed and that they bring everything they could possibly bring for every circumstance. In our case I think we are going to an outdoor wedding so that could be a lot of stuff! The husbands wonder why the wives are stressed! OK – I forgot – my husband also has to make sure that we have enough gas and he has to iron his own clothes. Of course I’m sure he will help with hair brushing and coat gathering too, right?

Are you wondering about the opening photo by now? Are you thinking, hummm, is she ever going to tell us why the heck the bunny is wearing that hat? I will. Really I promise. I just want to tell one more story first.

Since I’ve already done a semi-husband-bashing paragraph above, I want to tell you about a really sweet thing IHA said to me this morning. I was sitting here in my new studio working on my post (which, incidently, is completely different than this one) and he came in and said “Oooh, you are blogging! I’m so proud of you!!!” and he gave me a big hug and a big kiss. Wasn’t that sweet? I’m still deciding how to fit this in the context of my life though. On Monday, I spent most of the day mowing the lawn. I didn’t only mow the regular lawn, but I trimmed back a lot of the overgrown sections of the yard which meant mowing over a lot of briars and some bushes. I had to beg for a compliment for that. I said “Don’t you think the lawn looks great!” and he said “yeah, it does.” Whatever. But for blogging, I get hugs and kisses!!! And he even called to ask why I hadn’t posted my entry yet!!! So what do you think? More blogging and less yardwork and cleaning? I certainly don’t get hugs and kisses for cleaning the toilet!

Ok – back to the photo. My original title for today’s post was “First Finished Object” and I wrote up a whole post. It was rather dull. So I changed the title to “Knitting History” and wrote even more and it was even duller (more dull?). So I just gave up and started over. The photo is from 1981 and it is of my rabbit, Charcoal, and the hat I crocheted for him. I think this is my first finished object ever. What a lucky rabbit to have such warm ears, right?

Have a great weekend everyone!

My first major Crochet project was Stacy from Melissa Leapman’s Cool Crochet. Since I was taking a class with Melissa Leapman at TKGA, I thought it would be so cool to make something that she designed and wear it to her class!

So here is Stacy in Crystal Palace’s Shimmer:

She came out pretty nice! Even though I subbed the yarn – thanks to my obsession with swatching, she came out right to specs! I didn’t get to wear her to class though. No, I finished on time. She was ready. But I wasn’t. I thought I would be just fine knitting the smallest size. But it just didn’t turn out that way. The smallest size for Stacy is a 35, but I really needed a 32. I thought it wouldn’t matter, but it did, so I don’t think I will be wearing Stacy – she is going to have to go live with someone else…

So anyway, what I learned about crochet sweaters:

-mistakes in crochet can not be fixed from a couple of rows up – for even the tiniest mistake you have to rip back and do it over again.

-crochet pieces are easier to measure then knitted pieces as they lie flat and behave nicely.

-crochet is not as soft or flexible as knitting. The fabric is thicker and doesn’t do drape as well. Stretchy it is not.
-crochet is really hard to seam!

- I think I’m going to stick to knitting for a while