A Hectic, Activity, Learning-filled Day!

Today was one of those days when there were way more activities calling me than I could possibly do, so I had to make some choices.  Not being the best of travelers, it was not as hard to fink out on the trip to Boston.  The Joann Fabrics and Crafts people wanted me to come and knit with them at their monthly open house.  That was not possible to choose because at the same time was the annual knitting retreat in Hanover AND the last day of RootsTech 2014 in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Each of the three days of the conference there were multiple live sessions streamed over the internet.  Each day there were some that I really wanted to attend, the most of which were today, so...no open house.  It was possible to go to the knitting retreat for a couple of hours, but then I headed for home, via the gasoline station as the truck was operating on fumes....

At the retreat I love to take some knitterly things that I no longer needed or loved to put on the "Re-Homing" table.  Sometimes there are things on this table that I want to bring home with me.  Today I found some yarn to use to make a prayer shawl for the church which so kindly hosts the retreat. I also found a skein of dark green Bartlettyarn which I had looked for in my own wool stash to make another watch cap, but only found a partial ball, even though I was sure I had a full ball.  Now I do.

Rushing home I was torn up because the internet was not working!  I could not believe it.  After about six or eight minutes the internet finally lit up the screen.  By that time the opening session (about becoming an Ipad genealogy power user!) was surely well started. I saw a black screen such as you see on YouTube but nothing was showing.  After a few minutes I noticed the tweets on the side of the webpage where someone mentioned that they had had to restart their webpage. Immediately I did that and clicked on the little right-racing arrow and immediately Lisa Louise Cooke was there in full color.  At that moment I realized I could have just clicked on the little arrow at any time.  Was my face red, and was I ripped with my ignorance.  That particular session at RootsTech was fabulously useful...as were some others.

Because I am working on my Family History Writing Challenge this month, I still needed to make the recipe for today, so during the break between sessions I quickly made  up the batter for Chocolate Crinkle Cookies and, in lieu of putting in the refrigerator for 6 hours or overnight, I put it into the freezer for one hour (during the second session!), then during the break started baking cookies and washing dishes.

The cookies all came out well.  I was able to finish the tubular cast-on for another watch cap that I started at the knitters' retreat, and then pulled out because I had forgotten the critical point of only casting on half the total number of stitches.  The second time I cast on for it I made another gross error and pulled it out.  The third time I cast on, I decided to do something else.  This was all happening during the introductions part of the program at the retreat.  I had started by ripping out a previous hat I had made which was big enough for a lion or some other great creature but not for any humans I have ever met, more is the pity because I was pretty pleased with it.  Just goes to show:  knit a gauge swatch. ALWAYS!

So after the third cast-on of the watch, I picked up some cotton yarn and knit up a round washcloth from memory. It looked like it was right. I finished it during the Lisa Louise Cooke session of RootsTech.

Size 8 needles with cotton yarn and casting on 15 stitches.