Stitch N' Pitch

We went to the Mariner's game for the 3rd annual Stitch N' Pitch. What fun!!! It was great spending the evening with our friends and fellow yarn junkies. It is always fun to see what everyone is working on and to spend time with people who have some of the same interests as we do.

Saturday and Sunday mom and I spent most of the days checking out lots of new yarn for the shop. We found some beautiful lace weight, hand dyed sock yarns, extremely soft superwash sock yarn, some glitzy stuff, several new patterns and buttons - the list goes on. Needless to say we had way too much fun with the vendors.

We took some great classes - Artfelt and toe-up socks. Artfelt was fun - I love felting. Sounds kind of funny for someone that likes to have some influence over the outcome on things. With felting you have to let go and let the fibers have the final say in how things end up. Scary but fun.

The toe-up sock was wonderful. Cat Bordhi taught us from her new book. She is a great teacher - three hours flew by so quickly. You come away from her class bursting with information that you want to run back and teach everyone. Her new sock book is brilliantly fascinating and extremely detailed - I have just about finished reading every thing (yes, I read the patterns too). She puts some of the most interesting bits of information in amongst the meat of the book.

OK - I am off for the night so I can work some more on my toe-up sock.

I Survived!!!

YES!! I made it through an evening of Harry Potter insanity! I managed to find my self a place to sit out of the way and spend 4 hours knitting while the kids ran amok in the book store. Some of the costumes were fantastic! We made it home by 1am so the kids could start reading.

I struggled to get out of bed this morning to get to the yarn shop at any decent time. Thank goodness Mom gets there early enough to open up. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow though - I have nothing planned! It is supposed to rain really hard all day and I hope to sit and knit the rain away. Wish me luck!

My sisters socks are coming along nicely. I still have my green sweater on the needles and of course there is always the Mystery Stole. That should keep me out of trouble for most of the day.

'Cause I'm a Slacker!!!

OK - I'm a slacker! It has been pointed out to me that I haven't posted in a while - sorry for that. I have been so busy knitting and getting ready for my daughters birthday. Tonight I will be able to sit down and collect my thoughts while I wait for my son at the book store to get his Harry Potter book. (and get caught up a bit more on my knitting)

My sisters socks are coming right along and I am all caught up with the Mystery Stole project.

Road Trip

The shop was closed today so we took a road trip. Mom wanted to head over to Shelton so she could pick up a spinning wheel. We loaded up the kids and headed on down the road. We made a few stops along the way at some yarn shops of all things. We stopped at Yorkshire Yarns in Lakewood - Sonya is so nice. We really enjoyed meeting her and seeing her beautiful new shop. We headed over the bridge and ventured into Allyn. We stopped at Allyn Knits - what a surprise that was - in a good way. Here is this cute little town that is so small if you blink you will miss it - tucked right on in there is this wonderful yarn shop. Because we own a yarn shop you would think that visiting others wouldn't be too high on our list of things to do when we are off - NOT TRUE!! It was really great to meet these ladies and share bits of knowledge. Of course we invited both ladies to stop by our shop if they are ever in Burien - I hope they do.

After a few missed turns we finally found our destination. Mom picked up the wheel and the kids got to feed the miniature horses and see the chickens.

When we left Shelton we decided to try to hit Shipwreck Beads on our way back. What a huge place that is! We didn't get to explore too much because the kids were basically "done". To bad - I noticed they had a coffee stand in there - you really could stay all day and never see everything.

P.S. - My sister finally measured her foot - thanks Squirt

I Finished!!

I have finally finished my Ronald McDonald socks. With the nice big stripes it was pretty easy to match them up. I have a strange thing about wanting my socks to match as close as possible - it's almost like a game. Now that I have my sock knitting needles freed up, I can start my sisters socks. I gave her yet another call today to reminder I need to know how long to make these things. If she doesn't get back to me soon I might just knit to the end of the ball and she can roll them up. OK - I am off to work on clue 2 of the Mystery Stole.

Happy 4th!!

Wow - What a fun day! We went up to the shop early to stake out our spots for the parade. We sat around knitting while we watched the bicycle races going on outside - man were they fast! Several people wandered in the shop and just before the parade started we locked the doors and went outside. My son was in the parade this year so he was totally stressed about not getting any candy. He had to trust his two much younger sisters to step up and gather all the candy for him. Boy did they ever come through for him - they filled up half a grocery bag. I think it helped that there weren't too many other kids close to us. Those two really have the candy radar. My youngest was running out and grabbing as much candy as her little hands could hold. She actually went down to get a piece that another little boy was trying to get. She stopped, stared at him, gave him the "evil" eye and snatched that piece of candy right out from in front of him. We had more fun watching the kids than the parade. I'm actually glad I opted to leave my knitting inside - I would have dropped all kinds of stitches every time I had to run after the kids.

I finished clue #1 from Mystery Stole 3. It's really pretty - I 'm glad I decided to attempt this project - so far it has been a lot of fun. I can't wait until Friday to see what happens next.

I quickly blocked this just to get a better idea of what it is looking like.

Needles

Can I just say how much I love my Addi Lace needles??!! I have several pairs. Currently I am using them on the Mystery Stole project. They are a huge help with the sharper tip. Two of my other pairs are on my socks. I like to make my socks two at a time with two circular needles. Someone told me I had to do each heal separately - not true. I thought about it for a while and figured out a way that made perfect sense to me and it worked. I am currently on the foot of what I like to call my "Ronald McDonald" socks. It is Jigsaw #57 and they have bright pink, orange and yellow stripes. For some reason they remind me of Ronald McDonald so that is what I have named them.

I am pretty excited about the Fourth of July coming up. Burien has a big parade at it runs right down the street in front of the store. We plan on getting there early and setting out our chairs in front of the shop. It should be lots of fun.

We are also looking forward to the Mariners Stitch n' Pitch. We have a bunch of people going with us and we still have a few tickets available if anyone wants to join in the fun. We had so much fun last year just knitting and admiring everything everyone else was making that we didn't even realize that the manager for the Mariners had been ejected and that we lost the game. Silly us. Maybe I will try to follow the game a bit more - we will see. I like baseball but I really like knitting.