Remember when I said I come from a very talented gene pool?  Look at my niece’s fingerless mitts!!  She is in her freshman year at college, is a wonderful student and a track & field star.  Now she is adding knitter to her resumé.  I gave her a knitting basket for Christmas this year – complete with Debbie Bliss and pattern book (I think it was some funky Vogue pattern booklet aimed at the young, hip knitter).  In the interest of honesty, I must say that this niece isn’t technically in my very own gene pool.  She is my Boar’s brother’s daughter.  Nothing wrong with marrying into a very talented gene pool, right?

Yesterday was a glorious day!  To start off, I spent a lovely morning at the diner with knitting pals –  Kathleen, Ricki & Peggy and one non knitting pal whom we are trying to convert!  Kathleen is suffering the I-don’t -have-enough-yardage-for-my-Clapotis syndrome. 

I have been bit by the Fry Up bug.  I am amazed at the amount of time I have spent agonizing over every little detail of this crazy project.  As you know, I first had issues with the egg that resembled a mammary gland.  This led to a re-knitting of the plate.  Which in turn led to the Fiestaware pattern. 

Right now I have finished both plates for the bag.  However, I did not have enough yarn to complete the second plate.  (story of my knitting life these days)  After mulling over the many options, I decided to just hope that I can stretch it out through the magic of blocking and careful seaming – I am only 3 rows shy and could not bring myself to re-knit these damn things yet again!

And the other most wonderful thing about yesterday is Onslow’s homecoming! and I do think he’s forgiven me! : )  I love him so much, I want to marry him!

Guess who is in the garage….

Guess who looks as good as new….

that’s right, Onslow has been returned to me!!  do you think he will ever forgive me?

The Fiestaware Plate calls for an I-cord bind off. Having never done this technique before, I did a bit of searching to find directions. If you are like me, you learn best with visual directions.  Daughter #2 manned the camera ….

1. The stitches to be bound off are on the left needle
2. Cast on 3 stitches onto the left needle
3. *Knit 2, knit 3rd stitch together with next stitch from body, slip the 3 stitchess back onto left needle and repeat from *

I really like the detail of this bind off.  It is perfect for the plate edge, but it would make a great edging for anyone not knitting place settings!

I present to you my Fry Up Part II.  We left off yesterday with me, your protagonist, having knit a mammary gland.  I had a number of options:

1. re-knit the bag
2. re-knit the yolk
3. ignore the whole sordid situation

I did a lot of stash searching — this is no easy task as I have stash hidden everywhere and in some places that I forgot about. 

***I actually became quite disgusted with myself as I went through my stash — I either have way too much yarn or I need a bigger place to stash it.  (yeah, I think it’s the last one too).  Maybe today’s project will be finding one large storage spot for the stash.***

The simplest approach would be to re-knit the yolk.  And believe me, that was the path I was planning on taking.  Alas in all my stash far and wide, the only thing close to yellow was a color that was shockingly similar to the already knitted nipplesque color.

It was becoming clear that I would have to re-knit the plate/bag since there was no way I could ignore it.  When one is going out on a limb and knitting bacon & eggs, one should be sure that the project indeed looks like bacon & eggs. 

I actually started knitting a plate out of some blue stuff from my stash — I loved my friend’s idea for the Blue Plate Special.  Imagine my crankiness when it hit me that my blue was mohair.  Fuzzy plates?  nah. 

Next I tried casting on with some Fisherman Wool by Lion Brand that I had bought (months ago)to try my hand at dying.  The thought process that goes into this decision is spectacularly illogical.

oh, here’s something that might work – but you bought that to try dying yarn- yeah, you were going to dye yarn- fabulous colors that would make you weep with joy- but the kids drank all the Kool-Aid – how long ago did you buy it?-just use it now and when you become a world class dyer you can buy more- do you mean it?-are you sure?

So, onto the needles goes the Fisherman’s Wool.  I get as far as the second row before realizing that if the plate is knit in this off white color, then the egg white won’t show up to its best advantage.  ergh.

Luckily for you my dear reader, Purlingswine is a plucky gal — taking a tip from Fry Up Alongers, I decided to go the Fiesta Ware route.  Once I have the bag portion done, I will re-knit the yolk in the daffodil yellow from the original bag.

seems like a lot of agonizing doesn’t it?