Mrs. Caster

Here's a really bad pick of my lasted FO - it's all lined and purty but my camera phone sucks. Tomorrow I'll have real pics - of several FO's. Three day weekends rock!


Over on the Lime n Violet message boards - Miss V suggested, in honor of Labor Day (ok - she confused it with Memorial Day but it's still great idea) we members knitters and projects we'd loved. So below is what I posted on the LnV Message Boards of Doom!



I've actually told this story on the boards before - almost 40 years ago, my 5th grade teacher Mrs. Caster taught our entire class to knit. I can still hear the click click click of her knitting needles in class - always knitting a sweater - and usually with a skein of red acrylic. She taught us to knit squares to make afghans for the pagan babies in Alaska. No catholic school child could refuse any request involving pagan babies. So we knit squares and I really enjoyed it. I was dying to learn to sew (my grandmother was a quilting genius) but everyone deemed me too young at age 10 to use the sewing machine so I think knitting satisfied the crafty urge in me. As my classmates knit squares, I asked Mrs. Caster for something more challenging - she handed me some purple yarn and told me to cast on a number of stitches and come back when I'd knit a specific number of rows. That process went on for a couple of weeks - and along the way I learned to purl, decrease, increase, etc. By the end of the month I had a purple and pink stuffed alligator with a red felt tongue - every stitch knit by me - I still have that sucker somewhere in my basement. Aside from knitting - the other thing I remember (and totally love about) Mrs. Caster - is the fact that she kept a stash of booze in her cabinet in the teachers lounge. When she wasn't knitting in class, she was drinking coffee, little did we know it was her own special blend!!! So tomorrow, in memory of my favorite knitter and teacher, I'll have to hoist an adult beverage in her honor!