I Love Project Gutenberg

And other free sources of old out-of-print patterns.

Even if the patterns are a bear to figure out. You, too, can learn knitting instructions like "narrow", "fagot", and "increase as shown".

Project Gutenberg file 16605 is The Ladies' Work-Book Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. If you were looking for old instructions for crocheting a miser's purse, look no further than the "Handsome Purse" found here. (Bearing in mind the part about "a bear to figure out".)

How about the On-Line Digital Archive of Documents on Weaving and Related Topics?

Lady Katharin L. Hoare's The Art of Tatting and ten monographs on tatting by MML. Riego de la Branchardiere, can be found under "topics", then "Tatting".

The knitting documents were not as yummy, but they do include Natura Exenterata: or Nature Unbowelled, circa 1655. (This is not the whole document, but includes the pages on fingerloop braiding, knitting, and dyeing.)

We had a "family day" Friday. The kid had no school. (Thursday was the end of the marking period.) The husband had the day off for Veterans' Day. We did a lot of driving in lovely November sunshine, did a lot of errands, had a couple of hours at home, and went to a canton meeting in driving, pouring, blowing rain.

I meant to post about Veterans' Day today, but we had some more difficulties with our phone line. (See "driving, pouring, blowing rain".)

My husband has been in the National Guard since 1983. Things have certainly changed in the last twenty-three years. For a lot of those years, if I mentioned that he was in the Guard, I was about 75% likely to hear, "Oh, a weekend warrior, hur hur."

I don't hear that much any more. In parades, when the military units walk by, people clap instead of standing on the sidewalk and talking. On the occasions when we go out as a family when he's in uniform, complete strangers will come up to him in the grocery store and ask to shake his hand. Part of his job involves moving vehicles around the state, and when they stop for breakfast, people have paid for their breakfasts. Once a woman tried to hand him money!

What I hear these days is, "Thank you for what you're doing." They might have no idea exactly what he is doing, but in their minds, he stands in for all the deployed troops. It's touching, and somewhat embarrassing. He says, "I don't know what to say when people come up to me like that."

So I'll say it: You're welcome.