Knitting in pink

A week ago I went on a little trip to Iowa to visit my friend Kelly. She's still blog-free but considering creating her own knitting, cooking and birding blog...

Last Friday, we drove up to Minneapolis to do some yarn shopping and meet up with 3 bloggers: Chris, Guinifer and Deb

We met up at the 318 Cafe across from Coldwater Collaborative in Excelsior, MN. We had a fun lunch, chatted a lot and knitted quite a bit!

Chris & Deb


Kelly & Guinifer

Kelly, Guinifer, Chris and myself were working on socks and Deb was working on the Flower Basket Lace Shawl which I had just purchased that morning (the pattern, not the shawl) at Needlework Unlimited.

After lunch, we crossed the street over to Coldwater and had fun browsing there. I purchased one of their Dream in Color kit for the boy version of the Tulip Cardigan.



I have no one in particular to knit it for but I thought that the boy version would do just as well for a boy or a girl.

After lunch and my last yarn shop visit of my trip, Kelly and I went over to the Mall of America. Let's just say that we did a lot of walking there. Those who've been there will know what I'm talking about. We walked each level once and then in our search for a specific restaurant (very good by the way) we ended up doing 2 of these floors an additional time. Anyone have a clue on the mileage of one of these floors? The first floor is 0.57 mile long.

Our whole day in the Minneapolis area was a lot of fun. Thank you Chris, Deb and Guinifer for meeting up with Kelly and I, we really enjoyed it!

More on my trip next post.

A few months ago, I decided that I needed a new wallet. I was tired of my old large and raggedy looking wallet I've been using the last 6 or 7 years.

I wanted to buy my new one on Etsy so I searched and searched until I found the perfect one. There was one that I kept going back to, the Girl's Best Friend Wallet from Jenna Lou. I also really liked the wristlet wallets from Blissful.

Finally, a few weeks ago I found this wallet:

It's from Sugar Cane. The front pocket, where I keep my bills, has 2 additional pockets for cards. In the back there is a zippered pocket for change. I really liked the print and the size is perfect for what I use all the time.

I still needed room for all the additional cards one uses here and there. Like my grocery store cards, my bookstore and pharmacy cards, etc. So I bought this little zippered pouch for them:



Although the fabric isn't the same as the other one, I liked that it also had mushrooms and had the same type of fun print. This pouch came from What Sew Ever.

There's really a lot of fun wallets and pouches available on etsy, I do wish I needed more than one! : )

One day, there was a beautiful pattern named Snicket socks. They were in the September 2006 edition of MagKnits. A few months later, in July of 2007, I saw iSeL's gorgeous version of the pattern with modified heel and fell in love. At the same time, I had the chance to get a hold of a skein of Sunshine Yarns Soft in the Bloom colorway and thought that they would make a nice pair of Snickets à la iSeL's.

So I cast on towards the end of July. Back then I still used a cable needle to cable, so the sock took some time and effort. It took me just over 2 weeks of exclusive knitting but I had one sock.

A sock with no heel turn. Which I noticed only after the sock was finished.

Fast forward 2 months, it's the beginning of October and I just want to get the pair done. It takes me a month but I get the second sock done. I also learned to cable without a cable needle in the meantime, which makes knitting the sock so much faster and easier.



I also decide that the no heel turn thing is a problem and so I frogged sock #1 back to the heel. 5 days later I have a heel turn and another foot. And yet another pair of socks to keep my feet toasty warm this winter!



Stats
Sock #1 was knit between July and August 2007, the foot was later reknit in November. Sock #2 was knit between October and November 2007.
Yarn: Sunshine Yarns Soft in Bloom
Pattern:Snicket Socks
Mods: Heel flap with twisted stitches columns as per iSeL Knits

**********

I'll be visiting a friend in Iowa for a week starting tomorrow. I'll be in the Waterloo area during my stay there. We'll be going up to Minneapolis to get together with Chris. I'll have internet access while in Iowa so let me know if you're in the area and want to get together!