A Successful Hunt

Last weekend I decided to knit a bear for my friend DM's impending grandson. I knew just the pattern I'd use and was confident that I had the yarn to make it. Here's the original knitting of the Big Hug Bear. It was for the daughter of DS's friend about 14 years ago. I looked up the project on my Ravelry page and clicked on the pattern link only to discover that it was discontinued. No problem, I was sure it was in my Rav library. Nope. So I checked my pattern files on here. No luck. I got frustrated so I spent a few hours looking through bear patterns on Ravelry and found a couple that were acceptable, downloaded them, and put them in Dropbox so I could call them up on the iPad and Knit Companion so I didn't have to wrestle with paper and a row counter. But I was not happy.

As I was falling asleep I remembered that I had made binders of patterns when I was a new knitter and wondered if the Big Hug Bear pattern was in there. It was! Hooray! I scanned the pattern into Dropbox so I could follow along on Knit Companion and searched out yarn to make it. I wasn't sure if I had enough of the solid color (toast) to knit the bear since the pattern doesn't give an amount in either yards or weight, so I went online and discovered that neither JoAnn nor Michaels had what I needed so I ended up ordering a couple skeins online where the shipping is more than the yarn. *sigh* I'm glad I ordered two skeins because two skeins of the yarn is only slightly less expensive than the shipping. I like this color yarn so I'm sure it won't go to waste. Anyway, once I was done with yoga and dressed, I cast on and got started. I was enjoying knitting it so much that I skipped writing and drawing today and just knit knit knit. The cool part of this pattern is that you knit it in one piece, then fold it in half at the top of the head, sew it together, and stuff it. This is the front half.

After going out to lunch with the St. Agnes Class of '65 I went to JoAnn to find a bag of fiberfill to stuff my bear with. I also found a skein of variegated yarn that I can use to knit another bear using some dark gray yarn I found downstairs. I figure I'll knit both bears and decide which one to give to DM for her grandbaby and have one in reserve.

This little chipmunk was very busy today. It spent some time on the step grooming itself, scratching behind its ear, making me think that it has fleas.

The only other thing I did today was mow the lawn. I waited until around 6 o'clock to mow so that it wasn't so sunny and warm. There was a nice breeze when I was in the back yard where it was shady but the house blocked the breeze in the front yard where it was sunny. Oh well, can't have everything, I guess.

When I was searching Document files on here looking for the bear pattern I ran across a diving scene I wrote years ago that's very rich in sensory details so I've printed it off and plan to use it to fancy up my current manuscript. I'll get back to writing tomorrow. Cross my heart.

--Barbara