Well, Hooray for Anne at Blackberry Ridge. In my searching for clarification on the corner-turn on the Hiawatha edging,* I ran across a blog that credited her with helping - but neither said what the help was, nor gave an e-mail address for the person writing the blog.

So I e-mailed Anne (after all, that was where the kit had been purchased).

And she emailed back - in the same day - with the hint that the "straight edge" stitches you pick up and then pass over the corner stitches are actually along the edge of the EDGING, not the SHAWL. Which was not clear in the original pattern.

(And in the spirit of Anne's helpfulness, let me say - if you or anyone you know is knitting this shawl and has questions, feel free to email me - use the link on the side bar but take out the NOSPAM - and I'll try to explain whatever is baffling you.)

So now the first corner has been turned, and I have the long slow slog of the long (110") straight edge to knit edging to. But the edging is a nice pattern; it's intuitive for me, so it goes fairly fast.

(*non-knitters, or people who didn't know I was knitting, would be baffled by this combination of words. Not unlike the apocryphal story of how British soliders, raiding a German town in World War II, came across a handwritten knitting pattern and took it for code of troop movements. Supposedly a WREN (or one of the members of those "ladies' auxiliary" military groups) set them straight.

It's really gotten HOT here now; I trimmed part of the hedges yesterday afternoon and was really exhausted (and dripping with perspiration) when I came back in. More needs to be done, and I need to mow the lawn sometime. Maybe this afternoon. I teach like a banshee all morning but am done at 10:45 or so ("teach like a banshee" because it is two hour-and-twenty minute classes right back to back. Which means I need to be disciplined and do all prep the day before). My office hours today go 'till three. I've decided that as long as I get my prep done, and get at least an hour of research-related work done, there is no shame in leaving campus at 3 pm.

I bought some fabric this weekend with a thought to making a couple of summer dresses. I prefer dressing "up" for teaching - I'm just more comfortable that way. And when it's really hot, a long cotton dress (without stockings) is far cooler than slacks could ever be. (And I don't wear shorts, at least not in public.) I have five yards of a sort of magenta colored pique type fabric with small flowers on it - it was crazy cheap ($1.99 a yard). The dress I plan to make takes about 3 yards, so I'm thinking of perhaps making a pair of short pajama bottoms out of the rest.

(The good part about that dress is the pattern is already fitted to me. I have broad shoulders and a large bust and large upper arms, and most sewing patterns seem to be written for women who have had their biceps surgically removed.)

I also got some linen-weight yarn in sort of a khaki green with darker green and pink stylized Art Nouveau-ish flowers on it, and a nice Vogue pattern for it. (I will have to fit the Vogue pattern, though. It has waist darts and a rather deep square neckline. I'll have to pin it out and fit it to me - or maybe even make a muslin with some cheap fabric I have lying around - because I hate taking the time to make something and then finding it fits badly.) I think one of the reasons Simplicity and some of the other pattern companies have gone to big 'n' baggy for their looks (or at least they did the last time I cracked open their pattern books) is that they think most people who sew either don't know how or don't want to try to fit a pattern. Which is kind of sad - for me, part of the point of sewing some of my own clothing is to get a precise fit, and if that takes a bit of tinkering, a bit of slash-and-spread, so be it.

The other point is that I can get things in colors that aren't the three to five colors that the stylemakers for this year have deigned to be the "in" colors. They're not always colors I like nor are they colors that look good on me.

The other OTHER point is that I don't have to go into the mall. Most of the time, I'd rather shop the fabric store than the mall, at least as far as dresses or skirts are concerned. (I've never made a pair of tailored pants. If I had the assistance of someone who was expert at fitting or if I had time to take a class (and a class was close enough to me), I'd love to get a "master pattern" that fit me that I could make dress slacks off of.)