Knot Knecessarily Known Knitting

This has been a quiet year for reversible knitting. I taught at many shows, but "Introduction to Versa Lace" was rarely on the schedule. I ran an advanced reversible knitting class at South Carolina Knit Inn way back in February. I haven't done anything with that class since running it. I know it needs more work. I'm not sure when or how to polish it. Even if I'm not teaching reversible techniques, that doesn't mean I'm not thinking about them. I've moved from the original versa lace ideas where I could only translate stockinette-based fabrics upward to being able to work some purl stitches reversibly, such as in illusion knitting. I thought it might be fun to have a go at working Fox Paws reversibly. Fox Paws is the popular stunt knit written by Xandy Peters. The pattern is garter-stitch based, but uses stacked increases and stacked decreases to wildly deform the rows of knitting. The resulting patterns can be fantastic as ...

I don't talk much about my dad. If you are in my age cohort, that is not a strange thing. If you live far away from where you grew up, as I do, you might not see your parents often. My father died fifty years ago today.   He was the second officer on United Airlines Flight 553 from Washington National Airport (today Reagan National, DCA) to Chicago Midway (MDW). The 737 was named "City of Lincoln." This is back when commercial airplanes had names, not merely tail numbers. As you might guess, I was very young. I have few memories of him. Much of what I know is from what relatives have said. I know he loved flying. Being a pilot was his dream. He only lived it a few years, but he lived it. Not everyone lives their dream even one day. He had four years of it, or about 1,500 days. I looked up the information about the crash, so I could synchronize this post. Even after all these years, reading about it made me cry. It's a good reminder that when you lose people yo...