Kateri's Page

Back from Washington, D.C. My daughter is now a J.D. Once she navigates the Bar Exam this summer, she can officially call herself a lawyer. Very proud!!



We had a great time at the official Howard University ceremonies (including a performance by a gospel choir that had everyone in tears), meet-and-greets, and dinners out with her university family and friends--what a terrific bunch of people! But weather was not cooperative. When it wasn't pouring rain, it was sullen and gray and cold. Not the sunny, warm Washington I've come to expect at this time of year.

But despite the rain and chill, it was a terrific Mother's Day for me-- what could be better than to celebrate by cheering as one of your kids achieves a huge life-milestone? Quite the thrill. Will and his girlfriend flew in for the weekend's festivities too, so we were all together. I couldn't ask for more.

Now on to the next act: I'm organizing to leave Wednesday for a quilt retreat in Mineral Point, WI, with a dozen or so quilting buddies. Projects going along with me: the red and white Delectable Mountains quilt, the Serendipity quilt (needing only binding and it will be D.U.N.), a new project involving the Fun Patch template and inspired by this, a table runner project using a set of antique blocks, and the wedding shawl. And a couple small gifty projects too. Should be enough to keep me busy for a few days...

Before packing for the next trip though, there was this to deal with at home:


Not complaining--few things are better than picking asparagus in your own yard, bringing it inside and cooking it immediately.

I'll be back next week, with project updates, some new inspirations, and some Friday Archives projects, fresh from the vaults.

We are heading to Washington, D.C. to celebrate the our daughter's graduation from Law School. Big celebrating is about to begin. Yippee!

Something missing from this blog of late has been knitting. I had been sailing along on the wedding shawl but then hit a huge wall and had been unable to get past it. For several months.


I completed the main part of the shawl and had only to make the narrow knit-on border. This would be a new experience for me. But I had already figured out knitting lace--how hard could a tiny border be?




Well, pretty hard. It had me flummoxed. Three new skills at once were too many--the provisional cast-on, the lace pattern itself, and the actual attaching of the border on the shawl. It all sounded doable on paper, but when I tried to put it all together I ended up with confusion. And confusion in that blasted Kidsilk Haze is to be avoided at all costs since it's virtually un-froggable.

I tried knitting the lace pattern in scrap yarn to get a handle on the pattern's workings. I knit it over and over and over again. Only 12 stitches and an 8 row repeat, for goodness sakes! I wrote out each row and that helped, but stitch counts still weren't coming out right. And being unable to handle a pattern over a measly 12 stitches was damn frustrating.

I'm very happy to say that I sat down with it all over the weekend and figured it out. Eureka! The clouds parted and Kidsilk Haze gods smiled down on me. Everything came together.

It all came down to figuring out the charted directions on binding off TWO STITCHES in the pattern and most especially, realizing that the border isn't actually knit on a separate set of needles. Slap to forehead!

It's all happening!