Don't Forget the Knitting
There's one more vacation item I've forgotten to cover--the knitting! While on vacation, I went to not one but TWO family reunions. That is a total of seven days of camping. I haven't camped that much since my college days. So somebody tell me, when did the ground get so hard? Anyhoo, we held a family Knit-Along that spanned both reunions.

Most of my sisters and my mom joined the knitting fun. We're a large family, so there was a lot of knitting going on. We all knit a kid-sized version of the "Wonderful Wallaby" sweater. Wow, my family can knit! By the end of the reunion, we'd all made a lot of progress on our sweaters.

Knitting makes for a great family activity. We could sit, talk, and watch everyones' kids run around like wild animals, all while knitting up a storm. The Wonderful Wallaby pattern is perfect for this kind of activity because the pattern includes a lot of detailed instruction. For a knitting pattern, it's not too heavy on the abreviations, and it gives options for tackling different parts of the sweater. The sweater also includes all the knitting basics--decreases, increases, ribbing, garter stitch, knitting in the round. This makes it a good "first time" sweater for new knitters. By the time everyone finishes their sweater, they will be ready to tackle any knitting project.

I must say, the Knit-Along did a lot to stroke my knitting ego. I felt like quite the knitting expert, giving out my knitterly wisdom, as needed. Ahh, such expertise!

Unfortunately, my wallaby is not yet finished, darn it. I knit my sweater with a bunch of yarn leftovers. Purple body, pink arm, rose arm, multicolor collar. I thought I had enough to finish the thing off, but now my leftover pile is depleted! I'll be stopping by the yarn store this week to get the last bit of yarn for the sweater's hood.

Hey Prairietide Sisters--send me a picture of your finished Wallaby, and I'll post it to the blog!
- posted by Laurie @ 10:43 AM