I'm home and Knitting ADD continues...

I'm home from St. Louis and I had a great time. If any of you out there in knitting land have little girls, there is a book called Pinkalicious, which seemed to be a big hit with my neice...as evidenced by the fact that I memorized it in the 3 days I was home. Still it was better than playing Cootie. I also visited with friends (Jenn & Colleen) at a great BBQ and went shopping. I took a pair of shoes to my sister and managed to come home with 2 pairs of hers that she gave me and 3 pairs I bought. It's amazing how that happens...

I also started a new project. It's the Cozy Shawl from Knitty.com. I'm doing it in Kauni yarn.
I love the way the colorway changes gradiations. The yarn is a little more scratchy that I would have thought, but either it's getting softer as I knit more or I'm just getting desensitized, because I really like it. The yarn is very good for this shawl, the pattern is easy to remember and it's flying by so far.

In other news, I may have bought my last tank of gas ever under $50. I paid $49.98 tonight.

So, I'm headed to St. Louis this weekend. Yippee!! Someone asked me today if I was going to relax over the weekend and I think that's a relative term... I'm going to hang out with my sister, play games with my neice, hang out with friends, get my hair done, go to dinner with family. I've packed a lot into the weekend, so relaxing, not so much the word I would use.. On the other hand, it will be so good to spend time with my family and friends, which should recharge me and prepare me for the month of June which will be insane.

I got some special stuff for my niece. I don't think I could spend 4 days playing Cootie, so I took steps to remedy that. :-) We should have fun.

On another note, have any of you seen any of the Smart cars?? These things look so goofy tooling down the road along with the rest of the cars. I saw my first one today on the highway going home and they look so strange.

I spent most of the weekend knitting on a new project. Finished it too. I took the concept from someone else's pattern, but, of course!, had to reverse engineer it because that's just who I am. There were a few false starts and lots of frogging, but I do like the way it turned out in the end. The pictures will be up after I deliver the project to it's intended recipient next weekend.

I'm going home to St. Louis next weekend. I can't wait. I unloaded my present bag...yes, I buy things for my neice whenever I find them and just stick them in a bag in my spare room. Ummm...yes, I spoil her... There's also a special something for my sister as well. So I've already got that in my suitcase along with most everything else that I'll need. Just need to stick in makeup and stuff now. I'm ahead of the game...of course, I have no idea how the weeks going to turn out, so it's a precaution... Now, I just need to decide what knitting to bring with me....

They say the first step is admiting you have a problem...

My name is Gwen and I'm working too much. UGGHH!!! Too too much working. Too Little knitting.

I gave away the cute hats I made last weekend at a baby shower today and they were a hit!!! Yeah!!!

In which I was upright all day long...

Feeling almost normal today. I went to the grocery store (yes, left the house for the first time in 3 days...) and did laundry, worked a little and watched movies and knitted. As far as the movies go, Dan in Real Life was incredibly boring. I started watching it with Carmen and we turned it off because we couldn't get into it. I tried again and it just never got any better. 27 Dresses was better the first time I saw it in the theatre... After those two duds, I put in the tried and true Pride and Prejudice and life was just fine. It rained all day here, so I got lots of knitting done. I finished the second section of Nashua Surplice top and about 3 inches of the back in stockinette. It's a good thing Pride and Prejudice is good because the stockinette is boring, but fast.
Yeah! I might finish it yet this summer. :-)

And then there was knitting...

I must feel better, there has actually been kniting. I started having some moments of lucidity last night and then after sleeping like the dead this morning actually managed to be upright over some of the afternoon and most of the evening.
So, what we have is baby hats. The Rainbow Marley without the Marley's and the Updside Down Daisy hat without the Daisy both from the Itty Bitty Hat book, which I love, love, love! I'll finish those sometime this weekend. I have a co-worker having twins and she's having a baby shower next week, so they must be finished this weekend. Now I know why I save all those little bits left over from projects. The Red, Yellow & green are from baby bibs I made for a co-worker. The Orange is from a sweater I made from my nephew. The teal, a baby sweater for a co-worker. The navy from a sweater for my neice. The pink is from a sweater I never made, the white from the red & white striped hats I made for my neice & nephew for xmas and the lite green on the stem from the first sweater I ever made for my neice. Wow! How's that for using up all those little pieces.

While Carmen was here last weekend, there was lots of knitting as well...in between buying even more yarn... I started the second of the too many RPM socks.
And, I almost finished the entire second half of the bottom of my Nashua Surplice sweater.
I also started a new project that will probably be a xmas present for some lucky person so no pictures of it unless you're on Ravelry.

I'm sick. I have a cold. All I've done for the past three days is go to work and sleep. I came home today at 5pm and took a 2 hour nap and I'm just about ready to go back to sleep again. I really hate being sick. Ughhh. Too tired to even knit. Double Ugghh!!!

Maryland Sheep and Wool redux

Back from Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. It was an excellent time. It was an incredibly long day. Carmen and I left my apartment at 7am (yikes!) and arrived at the fair grounds around 8:30. We went in and things were already in high gear. We immediately went to the Koigu mill ends booth and umm...well lets just say the wheels fell off the bus and the result is below... We walked around for awhile and then went to the Ravelry meetup, which was insanity. Carmen found us some chairs in the corner where we talked with many people. Then we went back into the fray and got:
2 skeins of Brooks Farm Acero, which is a Wool/Silk/Viscose blen and is so beautiful.
5 skeins of Oragnics from the Fiber Company and a reversible scarf pattern for the yarn. It's such beautiful color of green. It's like spring and not accurately reflected above.
4 skeins of a silk/rayon blend of Autumn House farm that is soooooo beautiful and wonderful words cannot express. I wish I had gotten more now. It's this beatiful coppery color.

I also got some wedding yarn for a friend, and if she's reading this, she can get all excited because it's pretty and a present for another friend that I think she will like a lot.

And finally...the koigu mill ends...

Believe me, there is a plan. I have long coveted a koigu sweater and I want to do something striped. I'm going to have to play around with this, but I did get mostly a color progression with a few extraneous skeins that will become something else in life. Such as the group in the upper left corner that is destined to be a Chevron Scarf from Last Minute Knitted Gifts and 3 others that somehow got into the bag, but I don't remember. All in all, I love what I got. We just won't mention that my credit card is crying...