Another new blogger

So, who am I and why am I blogging?

I'm Lori. I live in Portland. I'm 40-something. I work. I knit. I serve the animals. I go to church. I have diabetes (type 2). I'm married. No kids. Right now, our household has 3 cats, 1 dog, and 6 guest cats, fosters from the Oregon Humane Society, a mama with 5 month-old kittens. I feel completely unworthy to blog. There are so many fabulous knitting blogs. But hey, why not blog?

I've been knitting for about 4 years now. I taught myself to crochet back in my mid-twenties, during a period of unemployment. I taught myself to knit using Maggie Righetti's marvelous book, Knitting in Plain English. I knit a triangular scarf, using lousy acrylic yarn, to learn the stitch and started on a blue afghan, using Red Heart-yeccch. The scarf disappeared years ago, and I'm going to toss out the blue afghan in the next two weeks.

Then, about a year ago, I took a class from a LYS-Portland has great LYS, btw-where I was breezily informed by my instructor that I was twisting my stitches, and I was going to have to learn to correct that before I could knit a sweater or anything else following a real pattern. How discouraging. It's taken me about a year to re-learn how to knit and purl correctly to get the yarn to lay at the correct angle on the needles.

Today's WIPs:
Pink scarf for my north neighbor. (3x3 rib in Crystal Palace Waikiki color Code Pink) This is a lovely little project and I'm liking it very well.

White Crocheted Nana Hat. I've been producing a series of white and near-white hats for my nana. I'm seeing her this weekend to give her the first two and see how she likes them.

Beaded Wristlets from Leigh Radford's One Skein book. I'm using Wildfoote sock yarn, and still swatching. I had to go from size 1 to size 0! I've never done a project on size zeros or done a project using beads.

Double Cable scarf from Leigh Radford's One Skein book. I took a class at Lint, a great LYS, from Leigh (may I call her Leigh?) and bought a second skein of yarn-oh my. I'm making the double-cable scarf in the Blue Sky Organic Cotton, as specified in the book. She made a scarf using that pattern, but in 10.5 needles, and with 16 cables on each end, making it about 5 feet long. I'm doing that. I'm on the second end of the scarf, have joined the second ball, and have, I think, about 5 more cabling rows to do, then the few inches at the end. It's lovely and my only regret is that it's probably going to be too heavy to wear in the summer months.

I am participating in the Interweave Press One Skein exchange-what fun-and eagerly awaiting the info for the person to whom I get to send skeins & a small project.

I just signed up for a class in the Elizabeth Zimmerman Baby Surprise Sweater, at Knit-Purl, another LYS, fabulous. I chose some Cascade 220 Superwash. That ought to be interesting.

I'll work on posting some photos & links in the next few weeks.