There has been...

Spinning!!! My first product. Plied and fairly good balance.
It's about 65 yards of what will probably be a light worsted weight yarn/heavy DK weight. I'm hoping to get enough out of the 4oz to make a scarf. I think I'll call it Electric Blue. Yeah! More of it already on the spindle. I did an Andean Ply on it. Did not realize how much I had packed onto the spindle. It took forever to wind it off onto my hand. Great way to ply the yarn though.

There has also been knitting. Here's an updated picture of the Cozy Shawl in Kauni
yarn.

Now that I more of the gradiation, I'm really loving the way it looks. This is a little more than 3 ft of the shawl. Now, I only hope that the yarn softens when I wash to block...

I also started a new project (heaven knows I couldn't pick up one of the 12 UFOs lying around my family room...). It's a secret project...

...but those on Ravelry can get more information...and no, it's not a sock. The yarn is Regia Fingering weight. It's in one of the new fall Kaffe Fassett Colorways. So far liking it a lot.

I went to see Mama Mia the sing-a-long version last night. It was hilarious. It's even funnier when half the audience is singing along. The other half was too embarrassed or laughing too hard. Unfortunately, after seeing it last night, I woke up to "Waterloo" and haven't been able to get it out of my mind all day long. Yes, if you're counting, that's the third time I've seen Mama Mia at the theatre and I'd go to see it again.

Finally!!!

I bought a car. Yes, I went out tonight and just bought a car. Hurrah!!!! I bought a 2009 Camry in dark gray. Yeah! I'm totally excited. Now, I can spend all weekend knitting and spinning. Woo Hoo. By the time I finished buying the car, it was dark out, so no pictures until tomorrow. Yeah!!

Stash Enhancement Exercise

Back from Stitches Midwest. Yet another year when I learned alot...inside the market and out...but more about my stupidity later...

What you're really interested in "THE HAUL."

I will say, it's less than past years. I've bought more on day one in years past, but I think I'll call this the year, "The year of the pattern." What's there:
3 skeins of Granada from Textiles A Mano
4 oz of Romney Roving with Glitz
1 Ornament Kit
1 skein Alpaca
1 skein baby bunny from Tess Designer Yarns
10 vintage flower buttons
8 skeins of yarn - 3 in the new Kaffe Fassett colorways & 2 coordinating solids.
7 patterns - 3 hats, 1 toy, 1 baby sweater, 1 adult sweater and a shawl
2 Norah Gaughan Berocco Pattern books
and a Pooper Weight from our favorite Venders Pajolo Alpacas

Whew! I'm in love with it all

What did I learn?? I took Spinning for Knitters with Marike Saaranit and she's a fantastic teacher, I'd advise anyone to take spinning from her. I kind of knew the spindling a bit, but Behold...

Balanced Plied yarn. Whoo Hoo. It's a mixture of stuff she gave us to play with in class, Wool, Alpaca, Wook with Glitz, etc. Loved spinning with the Alpaca. It was heavenly. I'm now inspired to play with my spindle even more.

What Else I learned outside of the market...You should always, always, always checker your itenerary, because if you say...accidently book your flight home one day earlier than you thought, it would probably be a good idea to figure that out before 9pm after flight left at 4pm. Very expensive lesson... Learning number #2, you should really go and buy a new car before it decides to really really bit the bucket one piece at a time...like when you put your window down and it won't go back up. You can't reach the glass to pull it up...so it's sitting out in the parking lot with the window open and there's not really anything you can do on a Sunday night... Yeah, that's going to be an expensive lesson as well. I can't decide whether to fix it and pay the $400+ or just take myself off to the car dealership tomorrow (on my day off) and just bit the bullet and buy a new car. Ughhh!!!

So, all in all the trip was fun. Beth and I had a great time, learned some new skills, acquired some new stash...and a reminder for me that...Shit happens. Ughhh.

The Pooper Weight

You know it's going to be one of those days when...

...you get into the office and realize that you left your laptop is still sitting in it's bag right inside your front door...

...someone sets a mandatory meeting for 4pm and you have a follow-up appt. with your eye doctor at the same time...

...You cancel your eye doctor appointment and reschedule for 3:45 on Wednesday, which is incidentally shortly after the rescheduled time for the mandatory meeting that someone forgot to tell you was rescheduled...

...you call the Eye doctor and they've already given away your 4pm appointment..

I just keep telling myself "You can't steal my joy" I'm leaving for stitches on Thursday. Yippee.

The suitcase is finally unpacked and ready to be packed for Stitches. Oh, the decisions....

So, I finished the baby blanket, so did I go back to work on some old project still unfinished??? Of course, the answer is no... I'd post pictures, but hardly any done yet and if finished it will be a christmas gift...

I had a good weekend. Relaxing. Saturday I went to see Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and then went shopping. Before I knew it, it was evening. Haven's shopped like that in forever. I even bought a new knitting bag to take to Stitches. Yeah Me! Pictures tomorrow.

Back from the most magical place on earth. It was fun. Even the whole work part was great, but I will have to say that Florida in August is very close to Hell. OMG the HUMIDITY!!! I was pretty sure I never want to live in Florida, that clinched it. And, what it did to my hair, we con't even want to talk about. It was as if I should have walked out of the shower and not bothered to dry my hair.

I did see several amazing speakers. The first was Fareed Zakaria, who's an editor at Newsweek and he was gripping, which is hard to say about economists, but I'm headed out to buy his book. And the second was Keith Harrell, who spoke about attitude, and from now on, I'm going to try to be more Superfantastic and less of everything else. The third is a perennial favorite, Reggie Butler, no not the linebacker, but he's a speaker on diversity and generational differences. I've taken several courses in diversity from Reggie and this year, it was 2 hours on generational differences.

Whew, am I exhausted though. I don't think I got more than 4 hours of sleep a night the entire weekend. I got home about 3pm today. I worked for a couple hours. Ordered a pizza and went to bed and napped from 7pm - 10:30. Then, I was unfortunately wide awake, so I'm blogging. I think this weekend I'll go see a movie and do laundry because Stitches is next week. Woo Hoo!

FO! FO!

Finally a Finished Object to report. I began to wonder if I would ever finish anything again. That's what comes from knitting on large projects rather than small. Takes much longer to actually finish them. So, here it is.

It's the Mason Dixon Log Cabin Blanket in 8 colors of Mission Falls 1824 Cotton. About two skeins of each color. I have enough left over to make a matching Rainbow Marley hat from Itty Bitty Hats. Just in time, the baby shower is next week.

I bought a new suitcase today. I needed something in between huge and carryon, so I bought a new suitcase. It's red. Yeah!! The house is cleaned, the floor vacuumed & mopped. I'm ready to go...

So, the clothes are washed and ready to be packed. I've been watching the Olympics and cleaning during commercial breaks. Dishes, miscellaneous picking up, making bed, etc. I can't stand to leave a dirty house and after spending a week out of town at meetings, the last thing I want to do next weekend is clean up a mess that's been sitting there for a week in my hot apartment.

Left work early today and went to get a pedicure. I think every Friday should end with pampering. Tomorrow it's a hair cut and a trip to Target. Yipee and then mopping and vacuuming and I'll be all done with the cleaning. Then all I have to do is pack, and it's a good thing because the cab is coming at 7:15 Sunday morning. Ughh!!

Baby blanket has 1 more row to finish and then binding off. I hope to finish it before I leave. Still haven't decided what knitting to bring with me. I'm thinking about my Kauni Cozy shawl and Zen Garden sock yarn for one of the sock patterns in the New Interweave. Hmmm... Decisions, decisions...

Okay, I'm 34 years old and I'm going to DisneyWorld for the first time in my life this weekend. Yes, my parents were not Disney parents. They were fishing/camping/car trip parents...which left us with some wonderful childhood memories/nightmares (camping in the snow, car rides in no air conditioning in 100 degree weather through South Dakota...on the same trip). I'm excited.

Unfortunately, only Sunday in the Magical Kingdom and then a weeks worth of work in Orlando. Oh, the trade offs we make.

Then next week Stitches. Yeah!

#3 thing that costs signifigantly more in DC....

Contacts & eye glasses.

Yes, after more years than I care to count, I'm replacing the glasses I bought in college and getting some that are my prescription...and yes, my eyes have changed a lot! And, can I tell you...even though I have eye insurance, the final price even shocked me. Good Lord, that put a crimp in my yarn money for Stitches. Thankfully I invested in the Healthcare savings account this year. That just spent all my $$s though. I won't be buying glasses for another 5 or so years...

Written while sitting in the dark because I look like I'm strung out because I had my eyes dilated. "It should wear off in an hour" my foot. Ugghhh!!!

Update: 9:14pm - pupils still huge. still in the dark. Wear off in an hour my @ss...UGHH!!!

Aa a reminder, #1 Rent, #2 Hair cuts.

A good evening

The ingredients fora good evening...

1. Pride & Prejudice. BBC version with Colin Firth, of course!

2. A good Knitting Project - aka the Log Cabin Baby Blanket
3. Homemade Blackberry Crisp. Yumm!!!

I also saw Mama Mia for the second time this afternoon with my SIL. Still just as funny and Pierce is still a bad singer, but oh, so attractive as long as he leaves his shirt on.