Well, yesterday to be exact. I was having too much fun last night to finish the post, so you get it early this morning.

We’re in Clifden, on the west coast in County Galway, and yesterday was just a glorious day.  We have friends in England who warned us that this was a horrible time to visit Ireland due to the weather, but we’ve had just grand weather. (Notice how I’m starting to talk like the locals?) We had one day when it just plain rained, and we’ve had a couple of windy days, but mostly it has been sunny for at least a good part of each day. It’s been cool, but that I can live with. It gave me an excuse to buy a nice little sweater while I am here.

So how did I spend my 53rd birthday? We drove around the Sky Road west of Clifden in the morning, with glorious views of the ocean and the many (300) surrounding islands. Then we drove to Leenane, stopping at Connemara National Park for a little hike. In Leenane, I finally hit pay dirt.

I finally found yarn! There were four kinds, all of them Aran weight. My sweetie bought me enough pretty yarn to make a sweater. The prices actually were quite reasonable. Here’s what I got.

The color of that is all wrong, but I think you’ll have to wait till I get home to take an outdoor photo in natural light. I already get mighty funny looks just for knitting in public. I can’t imagine what the locals would do with me if I started taking pictures of yarn in the parking lot.  There are roughly 2700 yards of that (not marked on the yarn itself, but I measured the hank, counted strands, and did the math). It’s a pretty, tweedy deep forest green. It will make a lovely sweater.

I didn’t stop there, always thinking of my readers. There’s more.

Those are both  Aran weight Donegal tweed, about 200 grams of each color. One of these colors will go in a big blog contest when I get home, so stay tuned later this week.

But wait, there’s more! There was a little spinning and weaving museum attached. The lady who normally is there giving demonstrations was out, but the woman running the shop saw my dejection and let me in.

Here are just a few of the wheels that were on display.

After we left Leenane, we headed for Westport, where we walked around and then had a couple of pints in Matt Malloy’s pub. The bartender bought me a Guinness when he heard it was my birthday.

We drove through some more fabulous scenery, getting back to our hotel just in time for cocktails and dinner.

Back at the hotel, one of the owners, on discovering that it was my birthday, bought me champagne, and at the end of dinner, a birthday treat and singing.

And I got to knit! What could be better?

We’re in Clifden again tonight, then we head back towards Dublin tomorrow, then home on Thursday. We’ve been gone long enough that I actually am ready to be home, though I’ve enjoyed every minute of this trip. Well, maybe not the parts where we’ve been nearly run off the road by tour buses going 100 km an hour, but all the rest of it.

There may or may not be another post before we head home. Someone else thinks I’ve been hogging the computer, so I have to give it up. Remember, check back later this week for a contest post!

I actually partly finished something today! Actually, it’s one sock of a pair, but that’s something, right? Everything else has sort of taken a back seat lately to 1)Spinning; 2) Feather and Fan baby stuff; and 3) Finding a new job and getting all the ridiculous paperwork done that is required, even though I’m not changing states or moving to a different hospital. And I haven’t even started with the HR stuff yet.

Anyway. Today was such a nice day, that I got to do a little knitting outside. The heat wave that we’ve had has passed, and I’m not sure it even hit the mid-70’s today, but it was nice and warm out in the sun. We went to the Steilacoom farmers’ market, which is only about ten minutes from our house, and found a lovely spot to have lunch on an outside deck. Knitting in public ensued.

After we got home and put away all the veggie loot, I sat down and finished the first sock. Here I am, trying it on to make sure it’s long enough before I close the toe:

And done.

Pretty, eh? That’s Zoe sock yarn from Shalimar, in the color Peonies. You can get your very own at the same place I did.

And second sock started.

There was more knitting loot that arrived at my house today. I have a set of the Knit Picks Options needles, and a set of the Harmony wood tips. They came out with acrylic Zephyr tips, and I had to have those as well. A lot of people despise plastic needles, but they have their place. They are a lot easier on my hands than metal needles, for one thing. Those lovely Signature sock needles up in that photo are beautiful, but they really make my hands hurt if I work with them for hours on end. They also have lethally pointy tips that I would not try to sneak on an airplane.

Here are the Zephyrs.

I’m off to make pizza. Sunset magazine had an article about making grilled pizza recently, and the dough is all done and ready to go (made in my brand spanking new bread machine). We have all sorts of options for toppings, but I think tonight’s version is going to be white cheese, basil, and perhaps some of those heirloom tomatoes from the market. I’ll take photos!

I guess I’ll fix those damned socks after all. As of right now, the vote is 64 to 48 in favor of darning the holes in the Ugliest Socks Of All Time. Interestingly, the vote in the comments was overwhelmingly in favor of tossing them out. There are some lurkers out there who want these things mended, apparently.

Of course, now that I’ve gone through all this angst over the holey socks, John now thinks new socks would be better after all. Maybe I’ll do both. I need to find some kind of ugly yarn that “matches” the ugly brown Wool-ease. I am so not buying new yarn for this, so it’s going to be non-matchy, thus making them even uglier, if possible.

If anybody pays attention to my sidebar, there was a little “whoops” this month. The Great Stash Knit-Down has apparently turned into the Great Stash Buy-Up. The net number went into a negative this morning after I added a little bag of yarn that I had added to the stash this past month. I’m blaming it on Kris. Sonny & Shear had that blasted end-of-the-year inventory sale, and some of the bargains were too good to pass up. Do you want to see some of it? Of course you do!

This is one of my favorites. It’s Imperial Stock Ranch Sock Yarn, in Wild Iris. This is just the loveliest “wooly” wool, the kind you want to just bury your nose in. Kris still has some of this stuff left, though not in this color. Go buy some, so I don’t feel so guilty.

This is Dream In Color Baby, in the color In Vino Veritas. It’s a heavier weight lace yarn, almost fingering. Who knows what this will be, but I couldn’t resist the name. I already have some of the Smooshy sock yarn in this exact same color, so I can have a matching shawl and socks. Cool!

Last but not least is more shawl yarn. This isn’t from Kris, but from Sharon from Three Irish Girls. I’m a member of the Sock Yarnista sock club, and this was the December offering. Sharon solicitated color names from members on Ravelry, then dyed yarn to match the most popular name. It’s called Mulled Wine. Of course, only one skein of this was included in the sock club, but I bought a couple extra so I could have enough to make a shawl. I’m thinking Cluaranach, by Anne Hanson of Knitspot.

Of course there was more, but I’m not showing it just now. I need to go knit like a banshee* to get that net number back into the positive range.

*Do banshees really knit? If so, can I get one to help out around here?

I Did It Again…

The Yarn Truck came this weekend! I don’t know what happened, they just deliver this stuff when I’m working. Ok, ok, I’ll reset the shopping counter, if you all insist. Part of the problem with ordering online from vendors who are also bloggers who know me is that they can bust me big time when I break the yarn fast and don’t “fess up”.

The top yarn is Dream In Color Baby, in the color Flamingo Pie. I bought this from Kris, and honestly, I’m pretty sure she must have a warehouse across the street from my house. I ordered it, and it was here 2 days later. Go there, she might still have some left. This will be a shawl someday, when I quit squishing it and start knitting.

The second yarn is from Shelly at Butternut Woolens. It’s her once-a-year special, the Rabbit’s Foot angora blend, color Foxglove. This will make some great socks. I just love this yarn. It’s soft and fuzzy, and that photo does not do justice to the colors.  She included a little sample skein of one of her other sock yarns, which are equally lovely.

We’re off tomorrow on another adventure. One of my sisters lives in North Dakota, the other in Phoenix. Guess which one we’re all descending on for a week in March? I’ll be in the sunny state of Arizona for a week. We have lots of activities planned for the week, including a few* adult beverages! I’ll try to post from the road. I’m off to pack the knitting projects!

* OK, maybe more than a few…

First off, thanks for all the nice compliments on the Forest Canopy shawl. It’s reblocking as I write this, for a couple of reasons. I blocked it in a bit of a hurry, and it was a little wonky. I also soaked it in my favorite woolwash, Kookaburra Delicate, but was in such a hurry that I forgot to rinse it. I think it might have been OK to leave it, but I wasn’t certain, so I redid it and rinsed it this time. I also got a little more stretch in the process. The final size is about 74 inches across the top, and 35 inches from neck to tip.

I got a couple more questions about the blocking mats that I use. Every time I show these I get a request for info, so I should probably put the link in my sidebar. They are the interlocking foam mats that most people use in kids playrooms. I bought mine online, from Wonder Mat, and got 16 of the 2 foot squares, along with edge pieces. This makes a huge mat, way more than I need for most blocking, but I also use them when John’s grandkids come to visit. We just cover the floor downstairs and they can romp at will. The mats do show holes eventually, but that doesn’t bother me in the least.

Now it’s on to Langsjal Jóhönnu. Here’s how you do the diacritic marks, at least on a Mac. Type option-e, let it go, then the letter you want the accent mark on. For the umlaut, type option-u, then the letter. I think the option key has the same function as the alt key on a Windows keyboard, but a Windows expert would have to weigh in on this one.

Here’s a photo, very roughly pinned out to give you some idea of what LJ will look like:

I am using lifelines on this one, as it’s pretty easy to get off track on this and screw it up. There is no easy purl-back row on this, all 10 rows of the pattern repeat are full of yo’s and decreases.

Now to the “Uh,oh”. A while back, Fleegle was kind enough to post a link to a Chinese online shop selling ridiculously cheap cashmere and cashmere-silk lace yarn. Of course I jumped. It arrived this week. First of all, the service was perfect. I got a prompt confirmation with a note that the standard shipping takes about 30 days. It actually only took about 12 days for mine. I ordered the cashmere-silk, 1600 yards worth of a lovely pink.

Note the “clothing” (wink, wink) on the customs form. This didn’t fool my husband in the least. Neither did the little checkbox that says “gift”.

And just how fine is that yarn, you might ask?

That’s the green Zephyr I used for the Forest Canopy shawl. The pink stuff is 800 yards per 50 grams, and the straight cashmere they sell, at 500 yards per 50 grams, is probably a little more like a real laceweight than sewing thread. Their regular price for both varieties is $9.99, and some of the colors are on sale for $6.99. You could get a damn big shawl for cheap with this stuff. Go buy some, so I don’t feel silly buying pink cobwebs from China. I do have an idea for what this might be someday, but I’m keeping it under my hat for now.

Or, Where I Am In That Crazy Never-Ending Eggplant Sweater

I really am going to finish this one of these days. For those not keeping track, I started this way back in December of 2005. Not 2006, but 2005. It sat in time-out for most of last year due to a variety of issues. I’ve been pretty sporadic about working on it, but I swear, I am not starting one more thing until this is done. That’s the first of two sleeves, and seriously, I’m thinking it would be preferable to just amputate an arm at this point. I don’t mind seed stitch, as I don’t mind purling, but given the miles of seed stitch in this sweater, I am getting heartily sick of it. That cable pattern going up the sleeve is of course the same one repeated across the front and back, so it’s all just boring at this point.

Not boring:

The Easter Egg socks are just wonderful. I love this yarn, even if I clearly can’t take pictures. While the yarn is a bit fuzzy, it’s my photography skills, or lack thereof, that makes them THAT fuzzy. I now have proof of why I buy as much yarn as I do for the stash. I only have one color of this yarn, this one, and they don’t make it anymore. Do I need any other evidence? I’m about ready to turn the heel on this one, my favorite part of sock knitting.

And in the category of funding my yarn retirement program:

Oh my. This is Dream In Color sock yarn. I was following clues on the internet one day, and found this. A few quick emails back and forth to Kris, the owner of Sonny and Shear, and she had a order on the way to her online shop. It came last week. It came, I ordered, it was delivered. She of course normally mails things, but we belong to the same knitting group that meets weekly, so she delivered it to me Wednesday in person. She had it in a brown paper sack so I could sneak it into the house without any interrogation. It sort of reminded me of a drug-dealer handoff.

Turns out I didn’t need to sneak it in. John took one look at that brown yarn, and claimed it as his own. (For socks for me to knit for him, not for him to knit!) Go buy some of your very own before Kris sells out of the stuff.

We’re off for another adventure tomorrow. We’re using a week of timeshare to go to Hilton Head.  My sister-in-law Ena will be there for part of the time. She emailed me to say that she’s learning how to knit, so I’ll have a partner in crime while I’m there. Woot! You’ll have to excuse me, I need to go pack knitting projects.

Added Later:

I promised Teyani a photo of my knitting spot in the kitchen:

When we remodeled, we got rid of our kitchen table and put in comfortable chairs for people to hang out in while we cook and chat. It’s turned out to be my favorite place to knit. When I’m in the kitchen by myself, I turn one of those chairs around to face the lake. Perfect!

Yarn Focus Challenge 2007

I’ll re-explain the mechanics of the Yarn Focus Challenge first, as every time I post pictures of newly-acquired yarn, I get a comment asking how I can buy yarn when I’m on a yarn fast. The deal is this. Once a month, on one day of our own choosing, we get a free day to buy yarn. I didn’t make the rules, people, I just follow them. Give me a free yarn-buying day, I’m going to take it. It’s like a Get Out Of Jail Free card, which I saw on Rebecca’s blog this morning. I stole it, with absolutely no sense of shame.

So Saturday I got to go shopping in the Big City* with two friends, Kris and Michelle. Michelle was in town for a meeting, and Kris and I drove up to help her shop. What were we supposed to do, let her bumble around trying to find yarn shops all on her own? What if she wandered into a bad yarn shop by mistake?

We picked her up at her hotel, which is when she surprised us with presents. Really, this was just way more than I expected, but it was very sweet of her. Here’s mine:

I’ll bet you want to know what’s in that little bag (which is just the most perfect project bag, by the way). Here you go.

There’s a lovely hank of Fleece Artist sock yarn in the most delicious color, some pretty stitch markers, and a fabric covered tape measure. A girl cannot possibly have too much sock yarn, stitch markers, or tape measures. Perfect!**

We started our yarn shopping downtown in Belltown, at So Much Yarn. This is a smaller shop, but with friendly staff and some nice things. From there it was off to The Fiber Gallery, in the Ballard area. For some reason I’ve never been to this shop before, but it is easily one of my favorite yarn shops anywhere. All three of us managed to unload some cash at both of these places.

An added bonus was getting to see Jessica, who works at the Fiber Gallery. She was teaching a sock class while we were there.

Then it was off to lunch at the 70-Something St. Alehouse, close to the Fiber Gallery. I’ve eaten there before, but it was absolutely packed due to the St. Patrick’s Day festivities, and the slow service cut rather viciously into our shopping time. Plus I got food poisoning, and spent the evening rather close to our facilities at home (instead of going out to dinner with friends as I’d planned). If you happen to be the owner of the 70-Something St. Alehouse, and are thinking of contradicting my diagnosis of food poisoning, please try to remember that I, in fact, do have a medical degree, do in fact have a license to practice medicine, and have, in fact, seen far more cases of food poisoning than you have. You might want to check out the handwashing practices of your kitchen staff.

After lunch, and before the food poisoning set in, Kris and I really impressed Michelle with our navigating and map reading abilities. We managed to get from Ballard to the Weaving Works in the University District by way of going all the way back down through the city and up I-5 again. If you live around here, you know that’s not the short way. We kept telling her that it was worth it, but I think she had her doubts until we walked in the door. There was this audible intake of breath from Michelle, followed by a whispered “Ohhhh”. We all spent money there, too.

Here a couple of action shots from the day.

Michelle is wearing Starsky, which she just finished knitting.

After I got home I took photos of the loot (before the food poisoning set in).

What’s in that pile? There’s a skein of Opal, one of Shaeffer Anne (that bright neon stuff on top), the blue is Mountain Colors Mountain Goat for hat and mittens, one of MC Bearfoot sock yarn, and a couple of skeins of shiny green Italian stuff (Ritratto) for a scarf. And a ladybug tape measure. And the bright green stuff you can barely see?

That’s Jitterbug sock yarn. It’s way greener than that. It’s Green in the way that my pink Cotton Ease from the last post is Pink.

Oh and Kris and Michelle? Remember that silky stuff we were all drooling over at Weaving Works? The Colinette Tao? After I got home, I ordered enough for a little scarf. It was still within my free shopping day limit, and it would have been another month before I could have bought it. What if they ran out? It isn’t here yet, obviously, but here’s a link to their website. Yes, the Copperbeach is the one I got, and yes, it really is that exquisite.

All in all, a fun day, and totally worth a case of food poisoning, which is gone. The yarn is still here.

Next post: The Daily Bread, a new installment!

*Seattle

**No, she didn’t buy me a new crown, that one is mine.

The sun has slowly started to appear since I took that one, but clearly, fall has arrived. There’s a nice chill in the air, getting down into the 40’s at night, fine sleeping weather. It makes me want to break out all that fine wool and start knitting sweaters.

I was able to get a better picture of the completed Forest Canopy shawl yesterday. One benefit of the ridiculous amount of money we spent fixing our wood rot problems is that I have a great glass deck wall to model shawls. You have no idea how much better that makes me feel about the whole project.

And as promised, I started a new one, from the same pattern.

Those of you paying attention might note that the yarn is not Knitpicks Alpaca in Vineyard that I posted about last time. I had this Zephyr left over from another project, and there is a little more than 2 oz. of it, probably 700 yards or so. I thought the color suited the name of the shawl, so there you have it. I’ll use the alpaca for something else. (A third one, perhaps?)

I started this on the Knitpicks Options needles, but had a heck of a time with the wool silk blend slipsliding away from me, so switched to my favorite needles of all time, Holz & Stein ebonies (3.25 mm, for future reference). I bought some of these previously via a friend who lives in Germany, but the shop that used to carry them doesn’t anymore. Fortunately I found the motherlode of Holz & Stein, and after several emails back and forth with a lovely woman named Ursula, this arrived yesterday.

These are simply the most decadent needles I’ve ever used. Here is their website, though it acts a bit squirrelly if you use Firefox as your browser. Email Ursula, and these could belong to you, too. They are not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but just perfect. The tips aren’t as sharp as the Options, but the join is lovely, and the ebony divine. Any of you spouses out there that are looking for a gift that will make your knitter-spouse swoon, this might be it.

I especially love that Ursula put this in the package:

It’s a cute little ebony pencil with Holz & Stein stamped on it, and a tape measure wrapped up to look like a sweet. How sweet!

The grandkids are here this weekend, so who knows how much actual knitting will get done. I’ll show you two last pictures of the day. First is Willie, as you don’t get to see many pictures of him here. Now that the weather is cooler, he’s hanging out in the house more. Yesterday was a fine day for a cat to enjoy a patch of sunshine.

And here’s John explaining the finer points of opening a bottle of wine to one of his grandsons:

Don’t worry, he didn’t get to drink any of it with his cinnamon grahams. Have a good weekend!

Actually, that should be, “can I hear you now?” More on the title as the post grows. First, I have had just the wildest week on earth.

I got to meet Dorothy again. She came and stayed at my house last Saturday and Sunday, so we could knit together and go to Seattle to hear the Harlot. Saturday we invited all our bleeding-heart-liberal-neighbor-friends over to meet Dorothy and impress her with their liberal jokes (I’m not sure it worked, but she was very gracious and put up with them nicely.) Actually the real reason that I invited them over was to prove to them that y’all aren’t really just my little imaginary friends. I’m not sure they believed previously.

Dorothy brought along several of her completed lace projects so I could drool on them. Now I truly have something to aspire to. Unfortunately I didn’t get any pictures of them, but go to her blog and check back through her archives and photos. She does absolutely amazing stuff with needles and yarn.

Sunday we got up early to get to church before we headed off to the city. My mom always claimed that it was more or less acceptable to party on Saturday night, as long as you got your butt out of bed and went to church the next morning. My first clue that something was amiss was that I could hear Dorothy singing in my left ear (lovely voice, by the way), but I couldn’t hear myself sing. I just figured it was the allergy season, didn’t think too much of it, and we went on home after church. We collected Kris for the trip to Seattle, then went on a little yarn-shopping expedition. Here are my partners in crime at Weaving Works:

Note Kris clutching that yarn like I was going to steal it from her. I couldn’t have, I had my own hands full. We also went to Acorn Street yarn shop, and did a bit more shopping. Here’s D & K perusing the sidewalk sale. Sad to say, it was mostly really sparkly bizarre novelty yarn. They did have very nice stuff inside, though.

Here’s the stuff I bought:

More lace yarn, like I need more lace yarn.

Mountain Colors Bearfoot, like I need more sock yarn.

This, I needed. I still am on a mission to do knee highs, and found the pattern that I just need to make. This yarn is just the softest stuff on earth. Here’s a picture of the pattern, not the greatest, but you get the idea. It’s from Socks, Socks, Socks.

I might decide that those are a little ambitious, but what the heck.

After we cleaned out the yarn stores, we headed to Bothell to hear Stephanie. She was a total hoot, as usual, though my right ear was driving me crazy and I was starting to get a terrible ringing noise, along with progressively worse hearing.

Here’s Stephanie at the book signing table:

She was very gracious, and took a picture of me with her sock. I am so honored, and if I died now, I would be a happy woman, let me tell you.

By the time we got home, the noise in my ear had turned into something very annoying. It sounded a little like I was sitting in the middle of the runways at Seatac. When I woke up Monday, the noise was gone, and so was everything else from my right ear. I couldn’t hear a thing. We got Dorothy off on her journey home, and decided to skip the Bumbershoot festival that we had planned to attend. Being as it was Labor Day, I couldn’t do much about the hearing thing, but did manage to do a little google search for “sudden hearing loss”. Nothing particularly comforting there, but I still wasn’t panicked. Probably the funniest comment that John has made in a long time, however, was to nicely suggest that I “call somebody” and get an appointment Tuesday to check it out. No, I just thought I’d wait until the other one went, too.

Tuesday,  I started my wild work week, made additionally entertaining by the fact that I could only hear out of one ear. I did get an appointment with an ENT specialist late in the day, and after some testing, discovered that it unfortunately was not some simple ear infection, or even better, wax. And that I had rather profound hearing loss. He put me on high dose steroids and an antiviral drug, and sent me back to work, with an appointment on Thursday to retest.

The good news? My hearing is MUCH better. The repeat audiology exam Thursday shows that I have regained quite a bit of function. It’s not even close to back to normal, but I’m extremely encouraged.
The bad news? Steroid side effects. My particularly lovely manifestation has been that I am totally emotionally wrecked. I am normally not a crying woman, but I have been just crying at the drop of a hat. Nurses call me to ask if it’s ok to send somebody down to xray without a nurse? I cry. My boss is nice to me? I cry. You get the idea. Combine that with some very lovely drug-induced wild dreams, and a truly wildly busy work week, and it has just been a weird time. I go back Tuesday for another evaluation, and only have to take these damn drugs for a total of 11 days, so I suppose I’ll live.

Oh, and one thing that really made me cry today. I don’t normally talk about patient-related stuff here, for all sorts of reasons, but I got called for an all-fired emergency consult this morning up to the labor and delivery ward. Without giving up too much confidential info, a young woman was in the middle of labor, pushing, baby about to be born, had a medical issue rather acutely, and they called me upstairs. Everything turned out OK, medical issue got resolved, and mom and baby are perfect. (9 pounds 14 ounces perfect!) I got to see the little guy get born though. That was truly a gift, as I don’t normally have much to do with the OB ward, and haven’t seen a baby born in years. And I was even able to hear his first cry. With both ears.

And I know what you all REALLY want to know about is the yarn shops in New York City! Never mind all the lovely tourist things to do, and the lovely restaurants, and the excitement of the city. You wanna see YARN!

Cara escorted me on the yarn-shop-crawl to beat all yarn-shop-crawls on Tuesday. It was a total blast to meet her, after reading her blog for so long. If you go to NYC, you have to talk her into showing you around. I used Tuesday as my “free” yarn buying day*, after nearly a month of abstinence. I was pretty good, though, and only bought a few things. No doubt the house project expenses figured into that. I did also get online that morning and buy some yarn for a sweater from Elann. This stuff, if you’re curious.

But, the shopping. Back to the shopping. We went to School Products, Habu, Purl, The Point, and Seaport. I think. Am I missing any, Cara? They are all fabulous. School Products is upstairs in an office building, and has more Karabella yarn than I’ve ever seen in one place, Purl is a beautiful sight to behold, Habu has some of the most creative yarns I’ve ever seen, and the Point has a cafe and yarn in baskets on the walls. Seaport is an office, not just in an office building. It’s a working marketing firm with yarn stuffed in every corner. You’ll be looking at a rack of yarn and some guy is at a computer at a desk behind you, working. It’s probably the most unique yarn shop I’ve ever been in.

Jen from Two Purls, and her charming little son Xavier, joined us, as did Kay from Mason-Dixon Knitting. Kay even autographed my new copy of their book, which I bought for the occasion.

Two stinking yarn shop photos are below. Unfortunately, I’m much better at my day job than I am at photography, and most of the shopping pictures either didn’t turn out or were unflattering. It’s written in the Knitbloggers Code Of Honor that you will not post unflattering pictures of other knitbloggers, especially when they are lovely ladies like the ones I was shopping with. And I completely forgot to whip out the camera at most of the shops. Here’s Cara at Habu:

And here’s Seaport:

Trust me, Jen and Kay were there, I wasn’t imagining it, and we went to all of those places, I didn’t imagine that either. I apparently was drooling too much over the yarn to take pictures.

And here’s what I bought:

From right to left: first is a cone of cotton lace weight tape, from Habu. The color may not show very well in that photo, but it is a pale mint-sea green. I think that will be a shawl. In the middle is a cotton-viscose blend from Garnstudio Yarns, purchased at Seaport. It will be perfect for a scarf, maybe the Branching Out scarf from Knitty. Last but not least is Euroflax linen, for a handtowel, inspired by Kay and Ann’s book. Never mind that I already have a bunch of this in the stash, I didn’t have any in this color, and apparently the mood of the day was green.

Oh, and I bought this, because I couldn’t resist it, and because you can never have too many tape measures.

All in all, a great day! Thanks girls–I couldn’t have imagined doing this any other way!

Next post will be knitting project photos, house project photos, and maybe a few scattered NYC pics. I leave you with a picture of someone who was very glad to see us come home:

*Remember, the Yarn Focus doesn’t prohibit yarn buying; you can buy yarn on one day a month, on a day of your own choosing. The ticker doesn’t need to be reset for that day, only if you succumb and buy yarn on a second day in any month.