I Love a Parade

So I was in Williamston on Friday night. It was their homecoming night. I didn't go for the parade or anything - I was just lucky. I love marching band music. I know it's very geeklike of me but I can't help it. It brings back memories of High School and I, unlike many other people, was very happy in High School. I was a flag twirler in the band. It was great!
Here are some pictures that I took.

This is the homecoming king and queen.
The marching band.
Cheerleaders
Young football players.

So my story is that I was knitting in my car waiting for my event to start - I will talk about that later. I heard the band coming down the street so I grabbed my camera. After i snapped a couple of pictures i realized that my car door was open and my purse was in there so I ran back and closed the door and continued taking pictures. You all can see where this is going right?

After the parade was over i had a little wave of nausea. I had locked my doors. I had left my keys, purse, cell phone, knitting in the car.

WAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Down the street there was a police officer directing the after-parade traffic. Surely he would help me! I thought they had those things to break into cars in their cars. NO THEY DON'T.

He did however, let me use his cell phone to call AAA. AAA wouldn't answer the phone because I didn't have my AAA membership number - because it was locked in my car.

I called my darlin':

Me: Um, darlin', I lockerd my keys and all my stuff in the car.

Him: Yeah?

Me: I know I have the car seats in my car.

Him: Yeah.

Me: Can you help me? Can you come and push the little button on your key and open the door?

Him: Ryan's asleep but I'll go and see if Elvis and Jo can watch them.

(Yes, I live next door to Elvis and his wife is now named Jo. I don't know if Priscilla knows)

Within 30 minutes he was there saving me. So I could go see:

SALLY MELVILLE

Yup, That's her. Isn't she cute? She's quite animated and full of information. I took her class on creativity on Friday night. Saturday morning was First Choices / Basic Shapes and then today was Advanced Shaping.

Yesterday there was one about stripes but I didn't take it because I'm a nitwit.

There was note taking galore and lots of new information. I learned that I can sketch. I learned that I can come up with new ideas of my own. I know that because since her classes I have about a bajillion ideas swimming around. I think I'd better write them down. For example, Sally has a sweater in her The Knit Stitch book called The Faith sweater. You make it by knitting a whole bunch of garter stitch scarves and then you crochet them together and add a sleeve. it'svery flowy and beatifully drapy. I've been wondering what to do with all of these stray skeins of handspun that I've been experimenting with. now I know that I'm going to try something using them and her great pattern.

I also like the look of Victorian clothes and all of their "V" shapes built in. I think I might try something like that with some beautiful waist shaping.

Maybe a cardigan with waist shaping on either side of some fab cables and set in sleaves maybe with a littl gather at the top.

And maybe, and maybe and maybe...I could go on with the maybes forever now when on Friday I only knew I'd like to try to design a garment but didn't even know where to start.

I also learned about what is my perfect short and long sweater lengths and I am going to share that with you now so you can know too. It works every time.

For your long sweater length you look in the mirror. There is a place on your legs where they start to turn into hips. That is where your long sweater should stop. Look in the mirror with a long sweater on and stretch it or roll it up and you'll see that it is true.

Short sweater length is a little more complicated and mathematical but it really works and here is the equation:

I'll plug my numbers in as examples

63" Height in inches

-3" For distance from ankles to floor - this number is the same for everyone.

60" Divide this by 2

30" This is the midpoint of your body between ankles and top of head

10" Measurement of head and neck - Put the ruler on your shoulder at about your bra

strap and hold your hand straight accross the top of your head and take the

measurement. Subtract that number from your midpoint number.

20"

+1 If you are small /medium add 1/2", Large add 1", XL add 1.5" and so on

21" Is my perfect most flattering short sweater length. It is very true becasue she

demonstrated in class and it works. This measurement is the full garment length from

the top of the shoulder not the center back neck.

I have ten pages of notes in addition to 14 pages of hadouts which I scribbled all over. I'm ready to design a sweater!

This was a great weekend. it did a huge amount for my self confidence.

I have a lot of other things to talk about but I'm going to leave it for later. But I do want to leave with one quote that Sally gave us that I love from Winston Churchill,

"Creativity is the ability to go from one failure

to another with no loss of enthusiasm."