Ooops, it's Tuesday already!  I switched my regular weekday day off from Wednesday to today and made a nice extra-long holiday weekend for myself.  It's been very low-key, though not without little bits of drama, and I've been very busy at home.

Drum-roll, please!  There were lots of good guesses for delicious sweaters (some of which I even have patterns for) -- Na Craga!  Flyingdales!  Aranmor!  Celtic Dreams!  Alas, I'm making none of those now.  It is... Elizabeth Zimmermann's Hand-to-Hand.  There were a few correct guesses and the randomly drawn winner is:  Cindy B.!!

I am using the Hand-to-Hand Aran recipe from Spun Out #20 (originally printed in Wool Gathering #14, March '76).  It is cast on at one cuff and knit to the neck, the front and back are worked separately to create an opening for the head, then reunited and knit down to the other cuff; stitches are picked up all around and the body knit down.  Mine will be a cardigan.

I have reached the neck and am working on the back.  I discovered a mistake in the "Little Cable Fabric" pattern that I'm using in place of the "Fractured Lattice" across the back and chest, so that weird needle and loose stringy stuff up there is what's left to knit back up -- I think I had to rip down 20-some rows and I just ran out of gas before finishing last night.  I remember the day when I used to do that kind of surgery with all manner of cable needles and crochet hooks -- man, that took fortification!  It's so much easier to put it on needles and knit it up -- tension is usually much better, too.

Second drum-roll, please!  There were lots of correct guesses in the mooshy-squooshy portion of the program.  The book is The Piggy In The Puddle, words by Charlotte Pomerantz, pictures by James Marshall (I never knew that was a Reading Rainbow book!)  -- and the randomly drawn winner is Tiffany L.!

When I went up to get the book off the shelf, I didn't have to look far to find other little piggy books -- and I wasn't even trying!  There are likely a few more.  The girls discovered them on the computer desk yesterday...

Kate:  "OMG!  Is that PIGS IN HIDING?!?!?!"

She starts paging through the book.  "Oh, I remember that one!  Look at that one!  Hahaha!  I always wondered what was under there!"  (See left. (Donuts.))

Enter Ali.  She picks up THE PIGGY IN THE PUDDLE, laughing, and says, "I can hear Dad's voice reading this to me!"  (It is a fantastic read-aloud book!)  "What you need is lots of soap!"

They laugh about DON'T FORGET THE BACON, a big favorite of Madeleine's (in kindergarten, she listed bacon as her favorite food and included the "recipe" in the class cookbook), and mention I CAN.  No conversation about children's books takes place 'round here with mention of that book.  The girls used to "do" all of those things that babies CAN as part of their bedtime routine -- every night -- for years and years.  I even shot video of it once or twice.  We added a few little things and elaborated to make it our own over the years, such as "the dying cockroach" and "the apple tree."  We practically wore out the original book and it is safely tucked away; I bought new ones for each of the girls several Christmases ago.  I'm looking forward to sharing them all with Mack and Addison... my own grandkids someday (no rush, girls, no rush at all...).

I had a little email conversation with our favorite Purling Swine about these irresistable piggy books -- I don't think she'd heard of a single one!  Well, I've got another one for ya, Annie, I just came across it this morning:  Swine Lake!  I'll admit I don't have that one on my shelf, but it must surely be a winner with the combo of James Marshall and Maurice Sendak!

Okay, I've got quite a day ahead, then it's back to the salt mine tomorrow.