Lynn, having worked a lot with folks from other countries (including some - from India - whose English was better than mine, even though it was their second language), I understand what you meant - people do say things differently and what is a simple colloquial locution in American English makes little sense (or sounds really bad) in British English, or Indian English, or one of the African variants of English.

I know of someone who was British and lived in America for a while as a child, then got in HUGE trouble after going back to Britain and referring to her sister as a "bum." What she meant was that her sister was being lazy and not pulling her weight, chores-wise...but of course "bum" means something different over there. Two countries separated by a common language and all that. (I'm not going to go into why "Fanny" was never a popular girl's name over there... other than to say it's not for the reason you might think, and "Fanny Hill" was a naughtier book title than most Americans realize...)

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I'm thinking about new projects. (Oh, I do want to finish some of what I have going right now). One big one looks like it's going to involve - eep - me doing some of my own designing.

Back when we all thought the little yarn shop near my parents was closing, I asked my mom to go and get what Boku she had in the green and brown color combination. I have eight skeins (which is about 800 yards). Since this is a color-shifting yarn, something like Kureyon, I want something very simple out of it. I have been envisioning a pullover vest, v-necked, done in a simple rib. (Maybe 2x2...that was my first thought but now that I think of it, that might be too narrow of a rib to look good. 4x4 might be better, though maybe a bit harder to wrangle the numbers on).

I also plan to do a provisional cast-on and do the bottom ribbing last. Why? Because I only have 800 yards of the Boku and I'm not sure that's going to be enough for an entire vest that is long enough and big enough to fit me, plus the bands at the neck, arms, and bottom.

I can ALMOST envision how I would do it...do a 2x2 rib gauge swatch (actually, 3x3 or 4x4 rib might look better, given my size and the color patterning), figure out how many stitches go to the inch, and then measure myself in strategic places (I want a vest that narrows a bit at the waist but is wider at the bustline...basically I want it to be fitted everywhere on me and not baggy).

And I have the Big Book of Patterns, or whatever Interweave book that is that purports to let you design whatever you want.

And I can kind of envision it...but I also kind of stop. My natural fear-of-failure goes, "But what if you get it all wrong and knit for weeks and weeks and then have to rip it out?" or "But what if 800 yards ISN'T enough for the back and front of a ribbed vest and you have to rip it out?"

So I don't know. I'm still thinking about it. It aggravates me a little that I can SEE this thing in my head, how it will look finished (if I need to, I will buy some Cascade 220 in a coordinating color for the bands at the neck, arms, and bottom). But I don't quite feel ready yet to try to take the thing out of my head and into three dimensions.

I do want to finish AT LEAST the Go With the Flow socks and the current SitCom Chic before I take on something new.

Thanks, Aven!

I do think I'm going to either make up (or have made by one of the label companies) labels that say "[MyName] me fecit" and leave a space for me to write in the year or the date and the year. I do agree that the idea of an object claiming its maker is kind of endearing.

I really think I need to track down some good grammar books, and also maybe look into a "serious" dvd or cd based course in German. I'm really, really getting interesting in the language and how it differs from English but because the class is a "conversational" class, I don't want to be all anorakish and always be asking these detailed grammar questions.

Last week the instructor let it slip that German has four noun cases: nominative, genitive, dative, and accusative. She also remarked that dative is really not marked any more in English.

That got me curious enough to look them up. The best I can determine from my reading is:

nominative is if it's the subject
genitive is like when it posesses something (in English, we usually use 's for that)
dative is like the indirect object
accusative is like the direct object.

In English, we don't specifically mark (with different articles) the dative and accusative cases, but apparently in German they do.

Which makes me want to go and track down a book on "proper" English grammar and sentence-diagramming (I know there is one out there - called something like "Sister Bernadette's Barking Dog"). I had a tee-toncy bit of sentence diagramming in 8th grade English but not enough to make me feel like I don't have a hole in my education. (Yes, most of what I know of grammar is absorbed by osmosis - from reading and from speaking with people who use good grammar).

Yeah...I know. People fought against diagramming sentences 20 years ago and now I want to learn it. Whatever. It just is something that interests me now that I'm trying to learn another language - seeing what parts of English grammar have become obfuscated to us as the language changed. (I never understood the subjunctive totally until after I took French, where "le subjonctif" is a for real and true part of the conjugation)