A New Day, A New Blogger
Imagine my surprise when I opened Blogger and saw their new Dashboard layout. Lots of new blog templates to choose from, too. Hmm, might have to spend a few minutes checking them out. But not now! Knitting always remains our No. 1 Priority here at Amy Knits, so let's get to the fiber, shall we?

Only 1 bind-off row remains between me and finishing the body of Neckdown Summer Cardi:

Finish me! Finish me!


And a little bit 'o fiber fun came via mail from wonderful Elann:



Six skeins of Schachenmayr Princess to make the top on the right. I keep thinking my summer yarn needs are filled, then Elann posts another yummy summer selection. Drat them.

A Blast From the Past
Funny how encountering a piece of your past can immediately transport you back to the exact time and place you first encountered it. The year: 1977. Location: High school library. Time of Day: a hot September afternoon, soon after the school year started. I'm sitting at a long table in the library, studying Biology. Adjacent to my table are the "cool people" of my class: Chip D., handsome blonde star quarterback; Chuck M., another football jock; Angie D., pretty brunette cheerleader; and Mardic E., our own high school version of Greta Garbo. Tall, blonde, and mysterious, Mardic always fascinated me. She seldom said a word, but would instead gaze at you with beautiful, almond-shaped brown eyes. Boys were reduced to slobbering heaps on the floor; girls were envious and/or admiring of her eternal cool. Mardic's unusual name was a contraction of her mother and father's names (her mother, Margaret, and her father, Richard, nicknamed Dick). It goes without saying that an exotic-looking girl would have an exotic and unusual name. Mardic swanned about the school hardly saying a word, trailing admirers in her wake. Her father had some sort of executive job in the plastics industry ("The wave of the future, Benjamin!"). Occasionally, he would bring home little trinkets for Mardic and her sister Joann. One of these trinkets was an assortment of cool Lucite rings in various colors. The one she was wearing on that hot September afternoon was clear Lucite with colored stripes. I never saw them in any stores in our rural town in 1977, and always admired them. Imagine my surprise when they started showing up in stores last year -- exact replicas of the Lucite beauties that Mardic used to wear. And last Friday, Not Martha had a link to The Carrot Box, who features a large selection of these rings.

My nostalgia over these rings was tempered by memories of getting to know Mardic during my senior year of high school. For the girl I thought eternally mysterious and oh-so-cool actually turned out to be dumber than a post. Her mysterious silence was merely the countenance of a girl who had no opinions of her own, and nothing to say. I suspect she was smart enough to know that staying silent was the best tactic, so as not to blow her cover. It was a Wizard of Oz-ish situation; behind this beautiful façade was an empty shell. Mardic was my first real-life example of learning not to judge a book by its cover.

Happy Monday, everyone.