Sunday, October 21, 2007

When your page is a blank book

I've been tagged by Fuguestateknits

who claims that she is simply expanding her horizons by including new Ravelry friends. Hah! I did manage to find time to read my blog today, and while the one lone comment seems kinda sad, I will comply.

The closest book to me is No Sheep for You, and it is only 160 pages long -- so the blank space is in memoriam to the tagging!

I will tag those in my knitting group, because I am conveniently out of town this next week, and won't have to face them!

To repeat the rules: go to page 161 of the book you are reading, print sentence number 5, and tag five other bloggers. Have fun!

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Peninsula to -- Morgan Hill?



My friend Liz was game to go on the 2007 Peninsula to Pier Shop Hop, which was organized by the CommuKnity store. Thank goodness for knitting friends. I need this overnight venture before a very busy week and a half.

We started at Nine Rubies on Friday afternoon and got to meet the lovely Jocelyn as a bonus. I swooned over the Kaffe Fassett Regia colorways, and Liz succumbed and bought the colorway I wish I had - ooops. There is redemption later in this story. This is a very friendly place with a lovely seating area.

At just about every store, someone commented on Liz' amazing scarf out of yarn she got at Tuesday morning. It is stunning yarn, and I'm happy to say that she knit me one too (she's the only person brave enough to knit for me). As an afterthought, folks would comment on my stash sweater - a good way to keep my knitting ego in check!

Knitter's Studio was an amazing inspirational kind of place -- where you see things you hadn't imagined possible. So much fun to look, but I think I'd have trouble buying stuff at this store because of the way that it is organized. Liz loved it because she likes and is good at combining all kinds of yarn together. So, what did we buy? A single skein of Cascade 220. Yeah, we suck at inspiration. FYI-The clerk didn't seem very excited about the Shop Hop.

Uncommon Threads was a very friendly store with many great tempting things, and we walked away with sock yarn.

By now, we needed a break and some food, so Liz has us stor fora wonderful dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant called Kahn's -- I highly recommend it. We were stuffed and took food home for $30 between two of us.

May I take this opportunity to say that the Parking Gods smiled on us the whole way?
CommuKnity was the best. Just as I was about to say that we might have to look a little, a car pulls away from right in front of the store. Yep, we got the best possible spot on an otherwise completely full spot. We were glad that we hadn't rushed our wonderful Vietnamese dinner, because the dyeing demo was cancelled. However, we explored the wonderfulness of the store, and I walked away with the shrug yarn (forgot the free pattern, but called and they are emailing it to me -- thanks, guys!). So charming, and I loved petting all their yarns!

Rug and Yarn Hut (in Campbell) was fun too -- the gal immediately showed us the free sock pattern -- it's a nice one, and Liz bought her third skein of sock yarn. Mind you, she hadn't knit socks until I bought her some Claudia Hand Painted from CommuKnity at Stitches. She now owns Sensational Socks and More Sensational Socks -- yes, she's gone over the edge and will never be normal again. She's putting me to shame in the sock department. Oh, she got a cute infant hat kit for her grandson -- at half price, and a Debby Bliss pattern, how can one go wrong?

I did break down and buy a bit of yarn, as the photo at the top shows -- the shrug pattern and yarn at CommuKnity, and some sock yarn at Uncommon Threadssome. Both for Christmas presents, so it isn't stash, right? Then, at Full Thread Ahead I broke down and got the Kaffe Fassett Regia Colorway, and at Yarndogs, I got some orange and black yarn on 40 percent off, so I'm fully equipped.

But I want to make clear that Liz bought more yarn than I did!




We ended at The Continental Stitch in Morgan Hill, but while we looked, we didn't buy anything. It was a quiet ending to a wonderful place.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Whew!

After knitting a number of garments for Afghans for Afghans, a couple of scarves for the Red Scarf Project, and some stuff for Lilybugs, I'm delighted to be back knitting exactly what I want to knit right now.

Don't get me wrong, I love charity knitting, but you have to knit what they need, or it doesn't matter, and so I'm glad to be able to spread my wings more.

Notice the button on the right -- Think Outside the Bottle -- check it out, and don't buy corporate water that's been bottled straight from your tap!