If you've haven't been following the story, I set myself a deadline of three weeks to complete Level 1 of the TKGA Masters in Hand Knitting.  I completed it just under the wire and mailed it out the following day.  My completed binder, filled with swatches, my report, answers, final project and a lot of hope then took a very slow boat trip across the Atlantic.  I was just starting to worry that the binder had been lost in transit when thankfully I received a confirmation that the binder had arrived safely in Zanesville, Ohio - an excruciating 9 weeks later!  What a relief!  

I was hoping to get my binder back before my one month trip to the U.S., but as my departure date approached I resolved myself to a month long wait before knowing one way or the other if I had passed.  Extremely jet lagged (imagine one parent, international flight, two small children, no naps) I got the girls tucked into bed at Grandma's house and checked my email to discover the precious binder and I had crossed somewhere over the Atlantic and it was making it's way back to the Netherlands.  The committee chair who reviewed my notebook was considerate of the mail delays and very kindly emailed my review.

The news was good.  All of my swatches passed, some with flying colors.  Some with notes.  One of the things I need to focus on in future levels is that my cast on can be too loose.  I guess that says a little something about overcompensating!  

I've got a feeling my hat passed with more than a good helping of generosity from the reviewers.  I may decide to reknit it or perhaps work the ends in again to address the notes.  

My report passed! My answers to the questions were accepted bar two.  For some unknown reason I started calling the lifted increase a lifted bar increase.  Who knows why.  Easy fix.  I also somehow lost parts b, c, and d to question 8! Lost perhaps when Microsoft Word crashed and I reopened the "recovered" document.  Luckily, I had good photos of the swatches online and could answer the missing parts to the question without waiting to have the notebook and swatches in my hands.  Grandma bribed the girls with Hershey's Kisses to play upstairs and give me a few hours to complete the questions and resubmit.  

I heard back within a day that my resubmitted questions had been accepted and I've officially passed Level 1!  WHhheeee!  Now on to Level 2.  I've ordered the materials and started reading.  Level 2 is intimidating.  There are more swatches, more projects, more difficult techniques, more written work, and reports.  Argyle socks! Fair Isle Mittens!  Advanced techniques...  I'm just going to take it one step and a time.  When it's broken down to it's smallest component steps, each piece can't be THAT hard.  It's just a matter of taking it one little step at a time until it's done.  

Not quite.  I sent my Level 1 TKGA Master Knitters binder via first class air mail on January 24th.  It arrived 8 weeks later.  What an epic mail fail!  I knew that deliveries were a bit delayed due to extra precautions stateside, but boy!  I think some folks have their binder returned within 8 weeks, mine just barely arrived!  

I find it funny that it took me 3 weeks to complete the work and more than twice that time to send it!  Well, not so much funny as perhaps bitterly ironic.  

Regardless, I'm focusing on the positive.  The binder arrived! Woohoo!  And now the real nail biting waiting begins as my binder certainly is in the hands of the committee now! 

Other news, I finished and sent off my first garment for publication.  In all honesty, it's really lovely.  What I find really interesting about the process is that it gave me an entirely new level of scrutiny for my work.  Not to mention a few mishaps along the way.  Since I may not be alone in my unlucky or distracted ways, I'll post the disasters and solutions for the unfortunate souls.  If you're unlucky, click on read more.  If you live a charmed life, go back to your knitting.  You would never snip the wrong thread.