Knitting in pink

I'm going to be away for a couple weeks. My grandmother from Switzerland passed away last night. I learned yesterday evening that she'd had a heart attack. This morning I was told that she'd died during the night.

She's the woman on the left. The man is my grandfather and I'm in my mother's arms at 6 weeks. The cute little boy is my brother.

She was my last grandparent still alive and I always thought I'd see her again in a few months on my next trip to Switzerland. I guess I was wrong. Give your grandparents lots of hugs next time you see them!

I'll be back a few days before Christmas.

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.

I'm going to Disney!

Tomorrow DH and I fly down to Orlando Florida for some Disney time. I've never been to Disney so it will be a new experience for me. We'll be doing the parks, going to see Cirque du Soleil (the best show ever) and meeting up with Alyson.

I look forward to having fun on the rides and to getting a bit more sun and warmth before winter starts.

I'll be working on the following socks (which I will be wearing in Rhinebeck in 2 weekends!)

They're just past the heel so in a perfect spot for airport and plane knitting.

I don't know how much knitting time I'll actually have while in Disney but I have a second project for when the Rhinebeck socks are done.



The Elegance sock pattern for the Sockamania KAL.

I'm thinking of also bringing my Snicket socks



I just realized that when I did the heel on the first sock I forgot a very important thing. I forgot to do the heel turn... The sock looks a little strange but fits just fine. So I'm debating whether I should just do the second one the same way or not. I'll call in my own unvention! lol!

Now time for one last errand and finish packing before heading out to Boston!

Day by Day resume:

Saturday:

Drive down to NYC from Massachusetts

Sunday:

View from our room

Brooklyn Borough Hall

Frick Collection

Lunch at Starwich on Lexington Ave

Guggenheim


Under construction

Walk around Central Park


The Mall

Empire State Building


Manhattan at night

Monday:

Tour on the Circle Line Cruise



Lunch at Bistro Les Amis in SoHo

Visit to Purl and Purl Patchwork

Loved Purl, so pretty in there! Made my way to Purl Patchwork.

All fabrics in the picture come from Purl Patchwork

Stopped for a verbena mint tea at The Point NYC

Tuesday:

Lunch at Payard on Lexington Ave

Walk up and down 7th ave and Broadway to find the trim and button shops and Habu and School Products (I did not have their exact address with me)

Figure out that the trim & button shop that I wanted to go to was on 6th not on 7th

Find M&J Trimmings



Wednesday:

MoMA sadly without a camera

Lunch at the Cafe 2 and Dessert at the Terrace 5 of the MoMA

Bit of shopping at the MoMA Design Store

Trip to Habu and School Products



You can see more pictures of my trip here on my Flickr account

While I try to catch up to everything after my trip to New York City, I'll leave you with a few pictures of the yarn purchases I made.

Karabella Lace Merino from School Products, Habu Textiles 100% Cashmere laceweight, Habu Textiles Wool/Stainless Steel laceweight from Habu Textiles

I guess there was a theme to my purchases, although I didn't realize it until just now.

Tomorrow I'm off for New York City.

Visit

The Guggenheim Museum

The MoMA

The Frick Collection

The Empire State Building

See

Central Park

The Statue of Liberty

Shop

Purl

School Products

Habu Textiles

The Point NYC

Stay

Marriott at the Brooklyn Bridge

Knit

See you in a few days!

Contest update:
Thanks to everyone who's participated so far. If you haven't yet, the contest is over here.

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On Friday, my friend and I went on a trip to Lexington, MA to do some shopping. Not clothes shopping or shoe shopping, but food shopping. Our main target was the Wilson Farm to find some of this. My friend and I had never heard or been to Wilson Farm so we imagined a farm with a couple stands on the side of the road. You can imagine my surprise when we pulled in to this huge parking lot packed to the gills with cars. Down below the parking lot was a huge field with everything from vegetables and flowers. We were even more amazed to see the size of the building and the huge variety of produce and foodstuffs available. It's like Whole Foods but still on the farm level. There were tomatoes in every color and size,

delicious looking fruits



cheeses, breads, the best yogurt ever, anything you'd like for this meal.



I'm already planning my next trip back... yum! If you live in the Boston area, Wilson Farm is definitely a place worth checking out.

On our way there, as we drove through the town of Weston I noticed a sign that said "In Stitches". I said to my friend: "That sounds like a yarn store, let's stop!" We did, and I'm mighty glad I did! The store was very nice. Half of the store carried yarn and the other one carried stitching stuffs. After asking for their sock yarns I found this:



ETA: I guess I forgot to say what the yarn is! It's is Araucania Ranco in color 108.

Of course I had to have it. I might not keep it for myself but will give it to my Sock Monkey Swap pal (if she'll have a non superwash yarn). If she doesn't, I'll keep it for me! : )

After our stop at the Wilson Farm we drove to Wild and Wooly, a yarn store in Lexington. I didn't buy anything there. Although I should have bought this and this. Especially after seeing this over on Turtlegirl's blog. I am now kicking myself...

I've been back since Saturday but it's been pretty busy with work and catching up that this is the first time I get to sit down and update my blog. Every day I've been like: I need to post about this, I need to post about that... Sorry about this long hiatus, hopefully it won't happen again! : )

More pictures of my vacation are available here

Vacation went super well. Sanibel was a pleasure, our condo was awesome and the beach beautiful. I think I fell in love with Florida. It was hot but not unbearably so. Central air is really an amazing invention. We were really careful with the sun and I just got a tiny bitty sunburn on my lower legs.

During vacation I knit, a lot. Assembled a 1000 piece puzzle, went to the beach or the pool, did a bit of shopping and met up with some friends. On Thursday we drove up to Tampa and I got to spend some fun time with Alyson (who drove all the way from Orlando) and other gals from the Tampa area. Go see Alyson's post about our meetup right here. It was a great fun meeting all you guys and I hope to see you again soon! BTW, Alyson, I'll be in Orlando October 10-17... Hope you'll be there!


The horrible golden glow of a Tampa Barnes and Nobles


I managed to stay on top of Bloglines by reading about 50 posts a day. So I only had over 300 to read when I got back! Lol! I apologize in advance to all the people who commented before I left, I will get back to you! Also, I have to admit that I did a lot more skimming than actual reading this week, so I'll be back to commenting on your blogs soon!



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On Monday I had the pleasure of receiving a package from my Special Swap Pal, Stress Reaction. Go check out her beautiful spinning!
This month's theme was Spring, and this is what she got me:



A Burt Bees kit, some Bath and Body Works lotion and body spray in my favorite smell, a pretty notebook with a suede cover, a candle, some seeds, some sweets and some more sweets yarn. I am so lucky, she got me some Duet sock yarn in Chantilly Lace and some Yarn Pirate in Neapolitan, very yummy tout ça!
Thank you Leah! Sorry it took me so long to post all this loveliness!

My trip to the Adirondacks was a great success. The lodge was comfortable. DH and I got to spend quality time with friends that live quite far away. We hiked, did some rafting and some canoeing. There also was quite a bit of knitting and spinning and even a trip to the most amazing store. Old Forge Hardware is quite the general store: you'll find hardware stuff, camping and fishing gear, kitchen equipment, decorations, clothing, a bookstore section, furniture and even a knitting section. My friend and I were quite impressed by the selection of books, yarns and accessories there. If you're in the area it would definitely be worth the visit, if only to visit the store itself. Also, if you're ever in the area there is another stop you must do. In North Creek, on route 28, there is Gore Mountain Alpaca Farm. The owners are extremely friendly and will talk about their alpacas and let you go into the field with the alpacas and even touch them. I had a great time there and would have loved to stay much longer.

The alpacas had just been sheared a couple weeks ago and were super cute. The group that you see are about a dozen females with the two babies. About 4 of the females were pregnant and are expecting this year. If you want to get more information or see more pictures just let me know.

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Tomorrow pictures of what I knit and spun while on vacation!

ETA: You can now read about the Yarn Harlot's trip to WEBS here. If you look closely you'll see me in the first group picture, 3rd person from the left.

On Wednesday I drove up to Northampton MA to go see the Yarn Harlot. I first stopped at WEBS to browse. I was tempted by some Debbie Bliss Cathay on closeout and by some Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. But I left without purchasing anything. Instead I drove into town and stopped at Northampton Wools. There I found a yarn I'd wanted to try for a while; Frog Tree Pima/Silk in a lovely deep red.

Then I went and waited at the Calvin Theater with a bunch of lovely ladies.


We were the first one to get there so when they opened the doors to the theater we were able to get some really good seats. Right in the front row in front of the speaker.

The room filled up as we were waiting for the Yarn Harlot to come in.


She was given a local beer


Photographing the traveling sock


Her talk was awesome as always. She made us all laugh and we all had a great time. She spoke for about an hour and then answered questions for about 30 minutes.

After that I drove back over to WEBS so that I could get my book signed. I had to wait about an hour and a half before I made my way to her table and got my book signed. I also had the chance to have this picture taken:


She's holding my sock, I'm holding hers...

All this time in line allowed me to work on my 80's punk rock socks and I was able to finish the pair yesterday.



Stats
First sock knit between May 6 and May 17. Second sock knit between May 21 and May 31.
Yarn: Perchance to Knit in Flash. Perchance to Knit is now available as Artist of the Month at yarn4socks. Sadly the color Flash is already sold out.
Pattern: My own. Basic turkish cast on toe up short row heel. K3 P1 ribbing. Addi US1 (US2 in other brands)
Mods: I used two different bind offs. The first one was k2got tbl sl st back to left needle, repeat on same size needle. This cast off was a little tight. The second bind off I found on someone's blog. K2, slip to left needle, K2 tog tbl, K1, Sl2 sts back to left needle, K2 tog tbl with a US3 needle. This bind off ended up being a little loose. I like the look of these two bind off much better than the sewn bind off. When I use them again I will do the first one on a larger needle and the second on a smaller size needle. (I hope that made sense!)