12/03/2003

Hi! I'm back from a trip to our nation's capitol and surrounds. It was a busy 10 days. Mostly, we visited with Leo's relatives which is always a pleasure. But with all the cool attractions in the area, we felt compelled to hit some of those too. The East Wing of the National Gallery, the Natural History Museum, the Aquarium, the Hirschorn Museum, the Zoo... Grandma's 90th birthday party which involved everyone parading around in her wigs. Lots of good food. Baby Lyla. Lots of miles on the rental car.

Once again, I had fantasies of what it would be like to live in DC [this happens to me in whatever city I visit]. It's such a vibrant city with so much going on. Such great OLD houses. This lasted about until the weather began to get cold.

And here is the completed mitered square Noro bag, ready to felt. I've been having some anxiety trying to figure out if the thing will felt square or wonky. Sure, it's square now, but since stitches felt more in length than in width, there is some nawing fear that the thing will pucker as two adjacent sides of each square should, by this logic, be shorter than the other two. The other side of me says it'll be fine; the amount of shrinkage is not so hard and fast. The various squares of the bag should work together. And I figure if it starts to look funny, that's the time to yank it out of the washer and assess how to go forward. Cool bag or "useful pot to put things in" type of contemporary art. Needless to say, I was dying to felt it, but since it will need to block and dry for a couple of days, I couldn't really do it on the trip.

Stay tuned.

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