KNITTING WITHOUT DOG HAIR IS NOT AN OPTION

Hello - I am back from the retreat and still alive. :-)

It was a very nice weekend with lots and lots of knitting. And some very interesting conversations… Some of them with drunken knitters - I am telling you... VERY INTERESTING - I actually took some notes which are still in my knitting bag. I was a good girl and only had a couple of glasses of red wine. I didn't want to wake up with a hangover and a bunch of ripping...

I taught some of the fellow knitters some German - of course, curse words first and then - OK - a few knitting terms. And now we have a new word for clinking glasses. We no longer say:

A votre sante! (French)
Alla Salute! (Italian)
Cheers! (British)
Egé szé gé re! (Hungrian)
Kanpai! (Japanese)
Na Zdrowie! (Polish)
Ooogy Wawa! (Zulu)
Prosit! (German)
Salud! (Spanish)
Saúde! (Brazilian)
Skal! (Swedish)
Slainte! (Irish)
Wen Lie! (Chinese)
Yasas! (Greek)
Za vashe zdorovye! (Russian)
Zivili! (Serbian)
Zum Wohl! (Austrian)

We now say Umschlag! which means yarn over in German. The others thought it was totally funny and it sure sounds like a toast. So, when with knitters, drink like a knitter and say Umschlag! If you care to hear the pronunciation for Umschlag – click here. If you click on the little speaker, a new window pops up and you can listen to the word. Have fun!

That toasting thing also gave me the idea to post some German knitting terms every once in a while - stay tuned for more!

Besides teaching German words and a few knitting tips and tricks (entrelac, toe-up socks, spit splicing, binding off without a big last loop/stitch…) , I also finished a couple of projects. For playing her chauffeur, Pixie gave me some great yarn when we got to the retreat. Gorgeous Berroco Foliage. I love the colors – black, purple, green, red (self striping). I finished the scarf Saturday morning and it was darn cold – so I actually wore it, too.

Here you can see Karen and me. She is knitting a beautiful sock - The Pomatomus. And I am hiding behind the scarf I started with the Berroco Foliage. I love this picture - Pixie took it - nice shot! She took more pictures - go check out her blog! These are three of our four dear male knitting friends - all fabulous knitters. You can see the weekend's charity project in my hands - I knitted a stoma cover which will be donated to the Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. And if you look closely - the finished scarf is behind me on the sofa.

I also knitted some on my dad's vest (298 stitches with Rowan Cashsoft for an Aran vest). I need to take pictures. But look at the number of stitches. It grows very slowly... And I started a pair of socks with greyish Trekking and some red yarn for a slip stitch pattern - also still undocumented on Flickr. I'll try to take pictures tonight.

And as the forecast predicted, we had snow on Saturday, and when I woke up sometime during the night from Saturday to Sunday, I thought we were in the middle of a blizzard. But of course it was dark outside and I couldn't see a thing. On Sunday morning, the wind was still blowing but to my surprise there was almost no snow, but a lot of sunshine. A very crisp winter morning. Total flashback to winters in Germany. And a very pretty drive home...

So, there - it's only Monday and I already made time to blog. Have a great week!