Jennifer Z and Bryan both get doctorates

Last Saturday our friend Jennifer Z and her husband Bryan both got their doctorates. That night they had a terrific party. Kateand I tootled off together and had a swell time meeting her family and friends, meeting Bryan (finally) and hanging out with team mate Dave and coach Kevin (see pic above)

Jennifer was glowing and looked fab----see the pic above.

I first met Jennifer at SCAM, which is my masters' swim team. We got into conversation very quickly because both of Jennifer's parents are Irish and she picked up on my accent in 2 seconds. I mean I had barely said "Hello" when Jennifer ups and asks" Are you Irish?"

It turns out that Jennifer is a great knitter and has been a huge supporter of knit-one-one. But Jennifer is never knitting for herself----her beautiful creations are always for someone else. So Kate and I had the idea to launch "project orange". We and whoever else cared to, would knit something for Jennifer in orange---her favorite color.Erin joined in the orange fun and so Jennifer was the grateful recipient of an orange wrap----Erin, an orange scarf---moi, and an orange wash cloth ---Kate.

Jennifer was just thrilled with our prezzies and as she said to me, " I know what it is like to knit for someone else. You think about that person a lot while you are working on the project. And I can't believe that you guys were doing this and thinking of me!" Needless to remark, we were all close to tears as Jennifer was talking.

But what Jennifer said is very true and I am not so sure that the recipients of our knitted gifts always "get" that part.

The Sammie Sweater and the models

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My friend Peggy wants to make a Sammie Sweater for a chihuahua friend so I was looking through my pics to send her one. I thought that they all looked so great that I would post them for you. We think we might offer another dog sweater class in the late Fall/ early winter. Send me an e-mail if you would like such a class. You know I would! And Allison and Patty, send us your pics so that we can add them to the menagerie.

Knit-one-one has started its very own yahoo group to make communications even easier. Click here to join and be the first knitter in the knit know! .

Happy Mother's Day, Come to the next knit-out and....Eoin's birthday.

Just in from a lingerie shower for my godchild Bridget. I gave her a stole that I had been working on for quite some time. I know that it is not technically lingerie but it is definitely long enough and wide enough to be used a cover-up! ( And I will have to borrow it back so that I can take some pics of it)

I hope all of the Mother's out there have a great day on Sunday. One of the ways in which I plan to treat myself is to spend lots of time knitting!

And I hope that many of you will come to our next knit-one-one knit-out which is this coming Wednesday May 16th at 6:30 pm. Rudy's Can't Fail Cafe was very hospitable to us and we had a very grand time indeed---much raucous laughter, some beer and wine drinking, some eating and a litttle knitting. Lovely.

A little about the pics: The lovely flower was made by a knit-one-one friend, Holly L. The pants are my famous dragon pants for which I made the scarf.( And I don't know why they are upside down---they were fine in the preview--Help Emily!) The sock was made by the aforementioned godchild in Rachael's sock class. And Eoin turns 25 on Monday so he gets to have his photo posted. Here he is with our friend Amy.

Summer knitting, Entrez, and tank tops

We had a great time at the Vivienne Westwood exhibition at the de Young. Of course, since we are all knitters, we were leaning perilously close to the garments to examine the construction. This was particularly true when it came to the knitted items. Yours truly was upbraided by a guard for leaning on a case----gazing at a felted neck piece! A future class at knit-one-one perhaps? But of course!

Last week I spent an amazing few hours at a great new store, Entrez-Open House in downtown Oakland. Knit-one-one instructor Tammy works there and it is owned by a former student of mine, Marie! (In my former life I was an ESL instructor at UC Extension). But back to the store. It is filled with all kinds of wonders: cute dog dishes, comfortable sofas and bean bags, fabulous table cloths and perhaps best of all from a knitter's point of view, loads and loads of different bags. And all of them are just perfect for our projects. Now the Entrez web site does not do this fabulous place justice. (Perhaps Ms Wooly Wumpus aka Ms Timbuktu Design will take on this task and gussy the web site up----I hope so!) The wonderful Tammy and Marie make you feel very welcome in the store so it is easy to forget that you are not at home. Tootle on down there-----and plan on spending a long time there.

Now with Spring in the air we have all been turning towards summer knitting---well some of us have. I realised that all of my scarves are very winterish so I applied myself to knitting up some cotton jobbies. I am on a swim team---SCAM---Strawberry Canyon Aquatic Masters---and even on those warm days it is nice to have a little something on the neck in those early a.m. hours. But for later on in the day what you need is a a little tank. The person who seems to create these tops at a mile a minute is the wonderfully creative Ms Yarn-a-go-go herself, and she is going to teach the rest of us how to do it too. Somehow a tank seems so much less intimidating than a sweater, don't you think?