I don't know when this will make it live.  Blog City is doing some maintenance today, and public posting may be delayed a bit.

Back from a fragmented long weekend full of family, and finger-healing I present what progress I've made to date:

It's getting tough to photograph this puppy because it has grown so large.  Maybe by the end of this weekend it will finally be done.  To calculate how long I've been working on my dragon curtain - I started experimenting back at the end of June, and began working on the piece over my July 4th week vacation.  That's over four months and about four balls of size 30 crochet cotton.  Given the low per-ball price, I'd say (aside from time) this was the most economical major project I've ever undertaken.  Costs were something like $2.95 per ball, plus $1.50 for the crochet hook. 

On where I was and what I was doing this weekend past - we had a wedding in my extended family.  My cousin married a really nice guy from Finland.  The wed locally, and my weekend was filled with family and festiviites.   Many of the groom's family made the trip over for the occasion.   I regret that time and a language barrier made communication with the new Finnish family difficult, because late in the weekend I found out that the groom's aunt is an avid knitter.  Since (believe it or not) one of the largest sources of hits for wiseNeedle's knitting glossary is Finland, I would have loved to have discussed knitting with her. 

In any case, if word filters back through family channels (some of them are String readers) - feel free to pass the word along.  Is there a general renaissance and new generation of younger knitters there, too? What are people making over there - are trends towards the traditional shapes, motifs and garments, or are they leaning towards reinterpretations?  I get to chat (or read along) with knitters from many other parts of Europe, but Finnish is a barrier that's hard to penetrate.