Yarntastic Day!

So I mentioned on Friday that a bit of sock yarn had entered my home lately. I splurged a bit since it was my birthday. Yeah, that's the perfect excuse. :) Prepare to drool!

(Pick Up Sticks Club and Rockin' Sock Club are the last photos so as to not spoil the surprise for other members).
Duet Skinny from A Swell Yarn Shop in Sailor Girl. Absolutely love this color combination! This is the new thinner sock weight Duet.

Cascade Fixation in Denim (2608) and Chocolate (7382). Adrienne knit a pair of socks with Fixation and brought it to knitting Group. They were so fabulous I want to knit some for myself!

Meilenweit Cotton Fantasy #812 (Blue and Tan) and #803 (Pinks and Browns). This just looked like great cotton sock yarn. It's 45% cotton, 42% wool, and 13% polyamide.

Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock in Undertoe (Mediumweight).
Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock in Socktopus (Mediumweight). Absolutely love this color and the name!

Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock in Foo Foo (Mediumweight).

Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock in Footzey-Foo (Mediumweight)


2007 Rockin' Sock Club April kit color, Walking on the Wild Tide, using the new base yarn, Silkie - a silk and wool blend. Absolutely stunning color!

And last, but not least the Pick Up Sticks April Sock Club Kit with Zen Yarn Garden in Spring Garden. The perfect spring colors. :)

So, which is your favorite? ;)

Return from the left coast

Oregon was fantastic (our flight was cancelled Wed. due to Chicago weather so we only got back late last night). We had a wonderful time with my Grammy and the weather was gorgeous. The big news is that we found and bought a house! It's a lovely home in a fantastic neighborhood very close to where Matt will be working. We will close in July - it's going to be hard to wait!

We got back to our two angry cats (they hate it when we travel) and a giant pile of mail rather late last night, but I did have time to see that some more yarn magically appeared in my house while we were gone. :) This picture is just a peak. Any guesses as to what yarn it is? I'll do a full post on Monday with the Rockin' Sock Club kit (Yowza!), the Pick Up Sticks Sock Club kit (Lovely!), and the other various non-club yarn. Tomorrow's my birthday and I plan on spending the whole day knitting! :)

Singular Sleeve, Shattered Dreams

I think we all knew this was going to happen. Somehow I was not able to magically knit two sleeves, a collar, and block Thermal in two nights. Weird how reality steps in sometimes. I did however decide to take the sleeve (and future sleeve a.k.a yarn) with us on our trip.

Tomorrow we are off to visit my grammie and do a little house-hunting in Oregon. We haven't gotten to see Grammie for two years! As happy as I will be to hang out with her, I'm almost as excited about looking at houses. I hope we find something, but if not, we know we may need to go back one more time in a couple months. It'll be fun, no matter what.

As I will be away from my computer there will be no blogging until next week. Let's say Friday, April 27th. Maybe I'll have a finished Thermal to show off then. :)

***Knitting Group is Tonight! We meet at the new Starbucks in Wilmette (corner of Lake & Laramie, just to the west of I-94 on Lake Ave.). We start at around 6:30 and go until 8ish. Any yarn enthusiast is welcome!***

The Return of My Knitting Mojo

Just a few days ago you may remember I lamented the loss of my knitting passion. Well, I'm glad to report I think it's back. After a wonderful trip to The Fold on Saturday with (most of) my Knitting Group I felt ready to knit and never look back. Unfortunately I couldn't start knitting right away Saturday night as we had dinner plans with Matt's little brother, but the dinner was fantastic, so I survived. :) Yesterday I knit most of the day and night. I am now nearly finished with the first Thermal sleeve. Clearly I won't be done by Thursday when we leave for Oregon, but I do have faith that this top will be done by the end of April. Hooray!



As for my purchases from the Fold, you may be surprised at what restraint I showed while being faced with a full selection of Socks that Rock and thousands of other yarns. With future packing for our impending move looming in my brain I decided to not go crazy and just pick out a few things. On the left is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Seduction in Ms. LaRock (tencel/wool sock yarn). In the middle, two skeins of Gypsy Girl Creations sock yarn in Cattails. And finally, two balls of Heirloom Breeze yarn. These came with a pattern for the cutest baby hat (for undisclosed future baby in the immediate family). I also found some cute buttons for Thermal.

The yarn shopping was wonderful however it was not the highlight of the day. What I loved best was the laughing and chatting and smiling. I have never had very many female friends and now I know what I've been missing. Our field trip was a blast! I had such a terrific time and I can't wait for our next outing to Madison in May.

Bait and switch

I know. I know. You all want to see the exciting progress on the Thermal sleeve. Well, wouldn't you rather see the gorgeous new sock yarn I got yesterday? It's Zen Yarn Garden In-Sync from The Sweet Sheep. It is so soft and beautiful. The colors are (left) Spring Bloom and (right) Speckle. I love these sock yarns that come with a coordinating bit for the toe and heel. So neat!
Tomorrow is my Knitting Group's field trip to The Fold in Marengo, Illinois. It's an awesome yarn store with sheep and Socks that Rock! :) Should be a fun day (even though it's cutting into my Thermal knitting time...hehehe).

So it goes

My favorite author, Kurt Vonnegut, passed away yesterday. Thankfully his books will live on forever.

Poser Knitter

I'm becoming a poser knitter. I love to look at (and buy) yarn online. I peruse patterns and knitting blogs as well. However, when I get home at night, I don't touch my needles. The last few weeks I haven't been as driven to knit and I'm not sure what it is that's changed. When I have knit a little during the past days I enjoy it and think to myself, "Hey, I should knit more." I'm not even sure I would call it a slump since I like the projects I've got on the needles. Hmmmmm...maybe I'm still missing my knitting buddy, Kilby the cat...Time to train Laska the Siamese to be my knitting companion. :)

So, here is the laughable amount of knitting I have done on the first Thermal sleeve. I haven't even gotten far enough that it looks like a sleeve and not a sock. Geez! If I really really really focus I may still get this finished by the middle of next week when we go to Oregon, but I really am not sure about that happening. Good thing we've fallen behind on all the shows we record so I've got plenty to keep me going. Online someone finished her Thermal and it looks super. I hope it looks as good on me.

One way to spark the knitting fire is to hear that someone in your immediate family is having a baby! I won't give really any details as it is still early on in the pregnancy and I'm a cautious girl when it comes to that, but I did buy the yarn for a baby blanket and sweater.

I like it so much I'm thinking about keeping it for my not-even-created future baby. It's Berroco Nostalgia and it's a cotton/acrylic/nylon blend. I had picked it out online about a month ago, but was going to wait to purchase it. Then I got the email announcing the Webs annual sale and I saw it was listed. How could I resist? It's really terrific yarn. I'm not sure you can tell from the picture, but the yarn on the right is actually a toned ombre that uses the same color as the yarn on the left. I think I'll do the blanket in the solid and the sweater in the ombre. The yarn feels good and it has this really neat shiny thread running through it. I look forward to knitting it soon.

***Knitting Group is Tonight! We meet at the new Starbucks in Wilmette (corner of Lake & Laramie, just to the west of I-94 on Lake Ave.). We start at around 6:30 and go until 8ish. Any yarn enthusiast is welcome!***

March Pick Up Sticks Club Kit

Hopefully I've waited long enough to not spoil this for any fellow sock club members. I received my kit Tuesday and I just can't wait any longer to share it. March's kit from the Pick Up Sticks Sock Club is the super fantastic Yarn Pirate! The color is ozone and the pattern is the perfect modern, but simple stitch pattern to go with it. Yea! I've been petting this yarn a lot. The colors and texture are just lovely. This kit may trump all plans for what sock I was going to knit next. Maybe I can finish up the Desert Flower socks this weekend though I hardly ever get any knitting time when we are away visiting family and that's what we'll be doing starting tomorrow.

I have a little bit of yarn on its way to me. Pictures soon. Some of it is even not sock yarn. Can you believe it? :)

Sleeve Ahoy!

On Friday I declared I would only knit Thermal this weekend. And that's exactly what I did, however, I did not actually pick up the needles to knit until yesterday. Friday night I was so brain dead from the week that I couldn't face the itty bitty needles and then Saturday we were out and about all day. We saw Blades of Glory which, in my opinion, might even be better than Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. If you love Will Ferrell you'll love the movie. If you don't like him (!) you probably won't like the movie. But how can you not like Will Ferrell? :)

As you can see from the picture, Thermal is finally getting some attention! I finished up the body and just got a start on the first sleeve. As usual, I'm not getting a good photo of the color. I'm using Knit Picks Gloss in Dusk which is a dusty blue. Now that I've got a sleeve on the needles it really seems like I might have a chance at finishing this top in time for our trip to Oregon in a couple weeks. Wish me luck!