New idea

So I need to do a couple of baby-sized beanies. And I just got the Debbie Bliss book of classic kid patterns (impulse purchase - my bad), which includes a sweater with two-color ribbing. And I have remnants of cotton in all the right colors, so I started thinking that for the 4th of July I could do a baby hat with two-color ribbing in red and white. Once I get to the crown, I was thinking about switching to blue and putting in colorwork "ticks," the kind you would see on the outside of a thrummed mitten. But it occurred to me on my morning walk that the crown is full of decreases, which would make it tricky to have nice even rows of ticks. Hmmm - I'm considering doing duplicate stitch, which is something I generally avoid. I'll play with the concept tonight and report back.

Meanwhile, I finished the "brainless knitting" shopping bag. That's not it's real name, obviously. The design came from a blog called "Yarn Over Manhattan" or something like that, and I'm sure it's google-able (when did that become an adjective?) if you're curious. It uses cast-offs and picked-up stitches to control stretching in the handle and top edge, and dropped stitches to get the open effect. I wanted it to replace my "smart bag," which lived in luxury on the bottom of my purse and was put to wide use for about 3 weeks, after which I misplaced the durned thing. I'll let you know how it does.

That's it for now. The garden is blooming, my professional life is becoming something of an extreme sport, Rick is due back from Little Rock tonight, and things keep moving on.