Bought

Firstly, the saga of John continues. His opthamologist here in Kelowna still couldn't determine what was happening in his eye by Monday, so he scheduled an appointment with a retina specialist in Kamloops (2 hours from here) for Wednesday. After scrambling to get my shift covered (thanks SO much, Cathy!), we drove to Kamloops for his 11:00 a.m. appointment. Once the doctor had examined him, John was told, "We'll have some fun with you this afternoon". He was immediately scheduled for laser surgery to repair a tear in the retina of his left eye... and four tears in the retina of the right eye.

We arrived home at about 7:00 p.m. Since his surgery wasn't to be done until about 4:00, I had plenty of time to wander around Kamloops (where we lived for a couple of years), touch base with some previous co-workers and do a bit of browsing and shopping, while John waited in the car (his pupils were fully dilated and he was more than a little light-sensitive and tired).

And that's where the "bought" part comes in. All that browsing and all I bought was this.

That's right, a colour wheel. I've been told numerous times by the man I so dearly love that I have very little colour sense, so I decided that this would be a good idea to have. Now, I just have to figure out how to use the darned thing.

The other thing I bought, not on this trip, is this book, "Knitting Ganseys" by Beth Brown-Reinsel.

This purchase was inspired by Franklin's post about a seminar he took with Beth at Stitches Midwest. We just happened to have one copy of the book in the store and I've been eyeing it for quite a while. Reading Franklin's post (click to read it for yourself) made the decision an easy one. I bought it.

Reading through the book is one thing, but actually knitting the sample sweater while reading the book, really helps you understand how ganseys (or guernseys, or jerseys) are made.

This little bit of the sample sweater is made with Sirdar's Country Style DK on 4.0 mm needles. I was going to work on it a little more this morning, but I left my 4 mm dpns at the store yesterday. Unless I have to, I don't like knitting with 16" circulars back and forth. Heck, I try to avoid 16" circs at any time. Using them makes my hand ache.

Incidentally, when I first saw the Gansey referred to as a Guernsey, I almost choked. I lived in the Fraser Valley for many years; it was predominantly a dairy area. There were a lot of Holstein cows to be seen dotting the landscape, and there were almost as many.. yup... Guernseys... or Jerseys. I've always associated the two names with cows, not sweaters.

On another note, I did start the Irish Diamond shawl from Cheryl Oberle's book (someone smack me upside the head, please). I'll tell you more about it in my next post. So far, it's an almost mindless knit. The pattern, so far, is an easy one to read and remember. I've had a couple of good suggestions from fellow "Yahoo-ers" in the Laceknitting group that I will be keeping in mind (i.e. it's a large shawl, and being square, drapes awkwardly over the arms... lengthwise.. so, I'll probably make it a little smaller than written as I'm not tall and lanky).

That should do it for today. It's supposed to be my day off today, but seeing as I missed Wednesday and there's a lot of stock to price and put out (yes, fellow fiber fanatics, we have some loverly new stuff in the store!), I'm going to go in for a few hours today. And leaving my credit cards at home!