Top with Crocheted Sleeves

I started this top over a year ago.  It is from Nashua Handknits, The North American Designer Collection No. 8.  I finished up the easy part ages ago and it has been languishing in my unfinished pile waiting for me to tackle the crochet part.  I modified the pattern to knit the body in the round (anything to avoid finishing work - that is one of the wonderful thing about lace shawls, almost no finishing) but now I have to figure out how to do the crochet, and while I am an advanced knitter, my crochet skills are still very much at the beginner level.  But I will figure it out, never fear.  I pulled out the pattern instructions today and was looking through them.  The next step was to block the body, so I wove in the ends and the body is blocking.  Once that is done, I'll start the crochet.

I was thinking about my trip and Turkey and I realized that I never mentioned the guide we had in Istanbul.  She was delightful, her name is Gulden.  I think because we only had three days there, and only two of them were really spent with her we didn't get to know her that well.  But she was an excellent guide, and a lot of fun.  Bruce and would like to go back and see more of Turkey, and Smithsonian Journeys offers some great tours there.  Who knows, maybe we'll see her again.