Noolie Knits

Make Over

My home away from home and favorite LYS, The Yarn Sellar, has had a bit of a make over and I was lucky enough to be asked to help.  As you may or may not know, my BFF's Patti and Roger own the shop.   Well, a couple weeks ago they mentioned that they were getting in several new yarns and needed to figure out where to put them (the shop was pretty full already, or so we all thought).  They filled me in on their ideas of rearranging parts of the store and asked if I'd be willing to spend some time helping them.  Are you kidding?!  A chance to spend a few hours fondling LOTS of yarn and also be the first to see what new yarns were arriving?  That's a no-brainer; of course I said yes!

I had planned to help them move furniture and displays and then the yarn.  As it turned out, they spent a few evenings moving the furniture around before my appointed day to help, which was last Sunday .  (a week ago, not yesterday; I really am behind in my posting)

I arrived at the shop at 8am and this is what I saw.

Don't even ask what Roger was saying. Not only don't I remember, but I'm sure it was something "wise"  ;-)

      
This is some of the new yarn that needed to find a home.


This is just a small amount of existing yarn that needed to be moved around. That entire wall in front of Patti was being rearranged as well a lot of other displays.  

It took teamwork to get everything done before noon when the shop opened.

   
Roger and Patti working together.  

Patti and I working together.  It's harder than you may think to decide which colors should go where.    

 We finished with just minutes to spare! 

 

Check it out:

 

  I love this wall - it's the Cascade 220 superwash on the left and Blackstone Tweed and Sundae yarn on the right.  (All new yarns.)         The two pictures here are views of the wall that runs the length of the store on the right as you walk in the door.         This is the back section of the store. The back wall is full of sock yarn (I forgot to get a good picture of the sock wall).   This isn't the best quality photo, but I wanted you too see what a wiseguy Roger is (click to make bigger).  
This is the front of the store; the needles used to be where the Cascade superwash is now, but they had a tendency to walk out the door, so now they're mostly behind the counter.  

I had  hoped to catch everyone's expression as they came into the shop on Tuesday night for Chicks with Sticks, but my camera isn't fast enough.  There were some pretty good surprised looks! 

 

Here's a picture of us sitting at the table in the front of the store.  It's such a nice change; we're now right near the windows.

 

 From front center going left around table:

Patti, my empty chair, Annie, Sue, Karen, Vary, Pat, Eileen 2.0, Carol

I have one final picture to show you.  It's a picture of my hair make over:

It's a fuzzy picture, but you get the idea. Hmmm, no picture of the front, I'll have to take care of that and share in another post.   That's it for this post; next time I'll show you what I've been working on.   Have a great day! I'm off to the Children's Museum for the morning :-)

WNBP

It's been awhile, so how about some Wednesday Night Bullet Points tonight? 

~~First things first - you still have time to enter my contest; I'm taking entries until I wake up on Friday morning (6am).

~~Check out this link and be sure to roll over the image :-)  

~~This past weekend was very busy, but very fun.

~~Patti, Sharon, Carol, and I left Friday afternoon and headed to Patti's timeshare condo at Loon Mountain.  The plan - a weekend of spinning and knitting together and attending the Granite State Knit-In on Saturday.

View from the condo

~~A couple of our other friends, Eileen and Eileen (no, that's not a typo), were supposed to come with us but couldn't make it.   That was the only downside to the whole weekend. 

~~We missed you 1.0 and 2.0!

~~I was only able to attend one of the classes at the Knit-In, but it was an awesome class.   Suzanne Federer, who used to teach at The Yarn Sellar and whose classes I've taken in the past, taught Intro. to Fair Isle knitting.  

~~She only had 2 hours to teach us, but she did a great job and I do believe I got the hang of it! 

~~I'm now contemplating what my first Fair Isle project will be.

Suzanne and Sharon

~~The weekend also included me taking a side trip on Saturday to Acton, Maine to attend my niece's graduation party.  (This would be the reason I was only able to attend one class.)

~~Said side trip involved an hour and forty minute drive each way - much of which was driving the Kancamagus Highway.  

~~I would have loved the scenic drive through the mountains had I been the passenger - as the driver, not so much.  

~~I'm a wimpy driver.

~~My niece is worth the white knuckle drive though.

Jena, the RISD grad, and her boyfriend, Andrew

~~The time spent at the condo with the girls was awesome.  The condo was spacious and comfy with enough room for us to leave our spinning wheels set up and not have to move them around if we wanted to take a break and sit on the couches.

Patti, Carol, Sharon                              Sharon, Patti, Me

~~I started my May Spunky Club fiber last Thursday night at Chicks with Wheels and finished spinning it on Friday at the condo. 

~~No picture yet because it's still sitting on the bobbin.

~~My Rainbow Tofutsie socks have gone from this:   

~~to this:   .

~~Some day I'll learn to listen to that little voice in my head when it says "It's not working; it's too small". 

~~After that failure, I decided to make plain stockinette stitch socks with the TOFUtsies.

~~My Cabled Yoke Sweater is moving along quite nicely.

~~All that remains to bed done is to knit are the sleeves, which are straight stockinette - YEEHAW!

~~That's it for now.

~~Have a great night!

Friday with Clover

Clover came to Chicks with Sticks for a while on Tuesday evening.

She had such a good time, she just had to dance!

A bit blurry, but still cute :-)

 

Have a great weekend!

I'm Doing Brian and Damn is He Good!

Get your mind out of the gutter; I'm talking about this Brian. 

We had our first Spinning group get together last Thursday night at The Yarn Sellar.

Starting in front of the door and moving right, we have Patti, my empty chair,  Brenda, Sharon, Carol, and Eileen.  It was a really fun group; I can't wait to go again tonight.  It's amazing how much spinning you can get done while yakking it up with friends!

 

Since I had finished the Campfire yarn, I needed something to spin.  I decided that I'd like to try Brian for two reasons: 1) I've never spun Coopsworth before, and 2) it didn't need any pre-drafting and I wanted to spend my time spinning, not pre-drafting.  I'm enjoying spinning this fiber; it pretty much spins itself.  I filled a bobbin with one of Brian's 4oz. balls in just a few days and have started on his second ball. 

 

I'm hoping for a 2 ply light worsted weight yarn when I'm done. I'm not sure what I'll make with it, I guess that depends on how much yardage I get out of 8 ounces.

A coworker of mine  happens to enjoy woodworking and offered to make me a bobbin for Lucille.  This was really good timing since I was planning to order a couple more bobbins anyway.  He finished it just as I was ready to begin the second bobbin of Brian.

 
Isn't it pretty?

 

Hopefully, this will be full very soon and I'll be ready to ply it.  I plan to use Alice with the Jumbo flyer to ply it. 

 

There has been a bit of knitting going on around here, too.  Don't get too excited though, it's not a lot, but it's something.

 

Look at this, I started a sweater for myself!

 

It's the Metro Pullover from Oat Couture

I'm using Plymouth Galway Colorneps Yarn and I'm really happy with this choice.  I'm  making one teeny weeny modification to the pattern; I'm knitting it in the round because I don't want to finish the knitting and then have it hanging around for days weeks because I don't feel like seaming it, which is exactly what would happen!

The other project that I'm actively working on is a hat.  

Fogbuster Beanie by April

I know it doesn't look like much in this picture, but I've completed another couple of inches and hopefully, mine will resemble the one in the pattern when I finish it.  I'm using some beautiful yarn that was handspun by my favorite Sheep and was gifted to me when we first met in person.  It's been waiting for the perfect pattern and this seems to be it - what better use for a yarn spun by one friend than a pattern written by another? 

I think this post pretty much catches us up on what has been happening around Noolieville lately, and I'm darn near caught up on blog reading.  Anyone want to place bets on when I'll fall behind again?

Have a great day!

Wednesday Night Bullet Post

~~Last night was another fun Chicks with Sticks night.  Most of the usual crowd was there and we had a visitor, Aricka who was a lot of fun.  She had stopped in the shop earlier in the day and saw the shop sample of my Tulips Scarf and Hat.  She wanted to buy it or learn to make it.

~~Turns out she did both!  Patti didn't have a copy of my pattern in the shop, but it's so simple I was able to write it out and show her how to make it.  She had crocheted in the past, so I really just had to give her a little refresher.  She used a beautiful rose  color of Ultra Alpaca and got quite a bit done while there.  She did a great job and she seemed quite pleased, which pleased me.  I just love it when someone gets so excited over a project, especially when it's my design :-)

~~Several of the regulars of CWS have recently taken up spinning.  Since there doesn't seem to be a local spinning group, we decided to start our own.  Patti offered to host it at the shop and we'll be getting together once a week to spin.  I can't wait; it's a great group of friends and it's nice to have an excuse to meet a second night each week :-)

~~I started another sweater for Clover the other night.  I knit a few inches on it thinking I was using the size 8 needles that I'd just finished using on her other sweater.  Granted, they didn't look like 8's, but that was the size I had put in my knitting bag when finishing the other sweater.  I wasn't liking how tight it was knitting up and decided I'd try a size 9.  I took out my Harmony tips and that's when it hit me - I had ripped out the Lisha Lace Scarf  the night before (we will not speak of this other than to say the pattern is great; I just can't count) and threw those needles (size 5) in my knitting bag.  The size 8's had already been put away.

~~No wonder it was tight!  Needless to say, I ripped out and restarted the sweater using the size 8's.  That was yesterday afternoon before CWS.  Here's where it's at after CWS (just a couple inches left on the back):

I've given this the very imaginative name of "Watermelon Pullover" Am I clever or what?

~~I bought this yarn from Zonda about a year or so ago when she mentioned that she had extra and wouldn't be using it.  It's Freshisle Fibers Suffolk Wool.  Along with the watermelon self-striping, she also had the solid watermelon red (which I used on the seed stitch border) and the solid watermelon pink, which I think I'll use for the sleeves.

~~I'm hoping that tonight I'll finally finish spinning the singles of the Campfire fiber I bought from Heather last month at Fiber Revival.  I really can't believe  how long it's taking me to spin.  It seemed like I was really moving along quickly there in the beginning.

~~It may have seemed that way because after spinning for a while, I weighed the fiber I had left and thought that I had already spun 2 1/2 of the original 4 ounces.  I thought it went pretty fast and the bobbin didn't look all that full but I changed bobbins and began spinning the "second half".  

~~A couple days later, Samm wanted to see what I had for fiber so I went into my fiber closet and guess what I found.  Yep, the actual "other half" of the fiber was in the closet.  I had only spun 1/2 an ounce on the first bobbin - DUH. 

~~Why yes, I am rather brain dead at times, why do you ask?

~~Go ahead, laugh at me.  I can take it.  I'd laugh if it were you instead of me.

WNBP

YAY for Wednesday and the WNBP format that the Sheep so graciously allowed me to steal from her.  Let's get right to it, shall we?

• Last night was our weekly Chicks with Sticks knit night (I just typed knit knight) which I look forward to every week.  I was especially looking forward to it this week because I knew we were going to have a very special friend visiting us.  Melissa was in Maine visiting her brother (the best weatherman ever even if he is predicting a nasty weekend for us) and decided a trip to The Yarn Sellar was in order.  Unfortunately, Rusty stayed with Melissa's brother and nephew for some male bonding time, so I didn't get to see him.  I'm pretty sure he begged her not to bring him; I don't think he really likes me very much. 
• Another member of our group decided to grace us with his presence. Mel's been very busy lately and we haven't seen much of him.  He's been terribly missed and we were all very happy to see him last night!  He showed us the beginnings of his gorgeous kilt hose (we even got to see it on his rather sexy leg!).
• Progress has been made on the lace wrap; I've completed the first of 11 repeats of the second chart.  I brought it with me last night, but I'm not stupid enough to think I can knit lace at knit night.  Fellow chick, Kit, knits lace at knit night all the time and it never ceases to amaze me how she can concentrate!
• I only had 1 other project on the needles, a sock, and I haven't really been feeling like knitting socks lately. (You may have noticed that I've not knit a single pair of socks this year!) 
• I had to find something else to knit, but what? "V" was the logical choice.  It's Amy's V-neck pullover pattern that came free with the purchase of this gorgeous yarn at SPA.  I'm cold all the time and the colors are "Spingy" enough that I'll still be able to wear it once I finish it. 
• It will be my Tuesday night knitting and "taking a break from lace" knitting until it is finished. Of course, I gabbed so much last night that all I managed to accomplish was the 6 rows of ribbing and about 10 rows of stockinette.  Sounds like a lot, doesn't it?  Don't be fooled; this pattern starts out with the sleeves.  Obviously, that's not enough to post a picture; that will have to come later.
• Weight Watchers has been going well; as of last Saturday, I've lost a total of 14.4 pounds (in 7 weeks).  Like I mentioned the last time I posted about WW, it really does help to have someone else on program in the house.  Samm's doing incredibly well, too; she looks fantastic!
• Another thing that has helped immensely with my motivation lately, is the Ravelry group "Less W8 in 08".  I'm currently involved in a competition in that group.  There are 4 teams of 5 people and we each earn points for eating fruits and veggies and for exercising.  Last week was the first week and I did pretty well in the fruit and veggie department, but was sorely lacking in the exercise dept. 
• I'm working on getting my exercise mojo back. Samm and Clover met me  at lunch today, and we went for a half hour walk and I went to the gym with Patti tonight, so that'll earn me (and my team) some points!  I'm hoping Samm will come walk with me a few days a week at lunch time; it felt pretty good.
• I've saved the most important (in my opinion) bullet post item for last.  Yesterday, I was reading my good friend, Dana's, blog, and she got me to thinking.  I know, hard to believe, but every now and then I do think.  She wrote about how we often put much unnecessary pressure on ourselves to do so much more with our craft, than is reasonable.  Please, you really MUST read her post; she says it much better than I.  Go ahead, go now; I'll wait.
• Dana has decided to stop the madness, and set four simple goals for herself, and I have decided to do the same.  With her permission, I reprint those goals for you to read and think about.

1. I will enjoy knitting first and foremost;
2. I will not press myself to complete the project;
3. I will not apologize when my life supercedes my knitting time a.k.a. "if it takes me twelve months to finish, that's perfectly fine;" and
4. I will commit to no more than I can reasonably accomplish.

I'll end on that note.  Have a great night!

WNBP

It's Wednesday and that means it's time for the Wednesday Night Bullet Post, so let's get right to it, shall we?

• As you all know (because I won't stop telling you) I am still fairly far behind on my blog reading.  Because of this, I hadn't read my friend Debby's post about her "Get Your Guts in Gear" fundraiser before posting about helping friends yesterday.  Debby's husband, Chris, suffers with IBD and her lovely spokescat from last year, Charlie, had IBD.  Sadly, Charlie passed away from IBD-related leukemia last fall (apparently this can happen in cats, but not people). Chris is going to be riding in a 210 mile/3 day bike ride to raise awareness and funds for patients suffering with these diseases.  Please read Debby's post here and help if you can.  She's even offering prizes including some yarn dyed in memory of Charlie - it's gorgeous.

• It seems that Wednesday (in our part of the country at least), means it's not only time for the WNBP, but it's also time for more effing snow/sleet/rain and just plain crappy weather. I'm trying very hard to believe that winter really will end sometime (and not just on the calendar), but I'm finding it harder and harder with each storm.  There's no accumulation today, but I'm so sick of the wet and dreary weather I could just scream!

• I'm dreaming of the days of floating in my pool, with the bright, hot sun beating down on me, and a nice Stoli orange vodka & tonic in the cup holder on my float.  Please tell me those days will be here eventually.

• Just as I had hoped, Patti brought her spinning to Chicks with Sticks last night and I was able to get a couple of pictures. 

 

• Can you believe how nicely her yarn is coming out?  She's a natural, I tell ya.  She even mentioned that she'd like a lesson on my back deck with Alice in the Summer.  Of course, she said the summer of 2010, but I know she meant summer of 2008!

• I had hoped to be able to show you a finished Neverending Sweater today, but alas, it truly is never ending.  Actually, I only have about 2 inches left to knit on the hood and I'm hoping to be able to stay awake long enough to knit that tonight.

• Speaking of being able to stay awake; just a couple of days after telling you that I thought I was catching up on my sleep, I took a turn for the worse in that department.  Not that I wasn't getting enough sleep; I've been sleeping really well through the night lately (sometimes going to bed as early as 7 or 8) and I haven't even had any help from sleeping aids for the last week or so.  The problem now is that even though I'm sleeping ALL.THE.TIME (at least it feels that way), I'm still exhausted by lunchtime.  I was scheduled for a recheck with the doctor next week, but have been having some pain in the front of my neck for about a month now, and hubby convinced me to push the appointment up.  Seems I may have an issue with my thyroid (doesn't sound serious); I'm going for some blood work tomorrow.

• Samm got an adorable tattoo yesterday; it's a 4-leaf clover on the inside of her ankle.  It's beautiful!  She wants it to heal completely before I can get a picture to show you, so you'll just have to wait a little while.  Shouldn't be too long.

• There have been rumors of a Dunkin Donuts going in very, very close to my house (not in my town; we're too snobby for chain restaurants), but only about 3 minutes away in the neighboring town.  I checked with my Assessor friend there yesterday to find out for sure, and YIPEEEEEEE; it should be opening in May.  (Why yes, I do like the DD coffee; why do you ask?)  I think I'll be changing my route into work ever so slightly in a couple of months :-)

• Speaking of coffee, I've still been very good about no late afternoon or evening coffee unless I have to teach a class at night (which has only been once since limiting the coffee) and on Tuesday nights so that I don't fall asleep at Chicks with Sticks.  I buy my last coffee on my way back to work after lunch (12:30) and sip it for about an hour or so and that's it.  Any of you who know me, know what a HUGE accomplishment that is.

• Hopefully, my car will remember to turn on my road on the way home from work instead of going straight for another couple of miles once DD opens :-)

I guess that's enough of the random for one night. 

Have a good one!

A Great Surprise

I have an FO to show you, but I can only take credit for part of it.  Before I show it to you, let me give you some background.

We all know that buying a Christmas present for a knitting friend is usually fairly easy - just find some really nice yarn and maybe some neat knitting notions and you're good to go.  But what about when your friend is also the owner of a yarn shop (the best LYS ever!)?  Hmmm, this makes it a little trickier to find just the right gift.

You may remember that before Christmas I was rushing to finishing spinning some beautiful blue and green fiber that Manise had gifted to me when she brought Alice (my wheel) to my house. (phew! can you say run on sentence?)  I told you at the time that I needed to finish it because I had plans for it, but I don't think I ever mentioned what those plans were. I'm sure that by now you've figured it out; that handspun yarn was gifted to Patti.  I wasn't so sure about the quality of the yarn; it wasn't the most evenly spun yarn around.  I was sure about one thing though; I was sure that Patti would appreciate my effort. 

Apparently, I was right about that - last night at Chicks with Sticks, Patti announced that she had some show and tell and pulled this FO out of her knitting bag:

Maine Morning Mitts knit with the yarn I spun for her!

I can't tell you how happy that made me; I was like a little kid on Christmas morning. I was so excited to see that she had actually KNIT WITH MY HANDSPUN YARN!  And, she said it was nice to knit with!  It gets even better - even though we see each other or talk to each other nearly every day, I never knew she was knitting them.  What a cool surprise.

Thanks for making my night, Patti!

Stealing Again

Again, I’m stealing the Sheep’s WNBP format. My excuse this time is that my brain is in a fog due to a horrendous cold and I am incapable of smoothly transitioning from paragraph to paragraph.

 

•  I woke up in the middle of the night Monday night (guess it was technically Tuesday morning) feeling like someone had snuck into my room while I was sleeping and scraped a layer or two of skin off the back of my throat. Holy Crap, it hurt! I knew as soon as I felt the pain that it was the start of a snot-filled week and a half. I get this same sore throat at the beginning of most bad colds. I’m all doped up on cold medicine and still I cannot breathe. Ugh!

•   We had a guest speaker at Chicks with Sticks last night. Doctor Chris from York Chiropractic Health Center spoke to us about ways to prevent the common pains we knitters get in our necks, backs, shoulders, hands, etc. He also showed us some very easy things we can do to help alleviate the pain because as Patti told him, “You can’t always teach old dogs new tricks.” He realizes that it’s nearly impossible to knit without holding your head in the downward position (I’m sure there are some out there who don’t have to look at their knitting, but I’m certainly not one of them). The stretches he showed us will come in very handy at the office too.

•  Mel brought his completed Koolhaas with him. What a beautiful hat, and soft, OMG is it soft!

•  I started and am about two thirds of the way through a Christmas stocking for Clover. I wanted her to have something that she could keep forever in the very special colorway that Heather created in her honor, “Sweet Clover”, and figured what better than a Christmas stocking. Heather was nice enough to dye some up in a worsted weight superwash merino and to also dye some coordinating green for me to use for the top, heel, and toe. Here it is:

 

What do you think?

I’m going to put her name on it in duplicate stitch (in pale pink or white) and there’s one other little surprise that is going on at Samm’s request – a pocket in the front. Why a pocket? Because the stocking that Samm has had all her life (until last year when I made one for her) has a pocket in the front and each year Santa brought a new little stuffed animal to put in it.

• There hasn’t been a whole lot of progress made on the socks I’m knitting for my BIL (aka Bob Socks). I’ve knit about two more inches on the first one; I’m thinking I should get busy working on that again sometime soon. After all, Christmas will be here before you know it and I also want to knit him a pair of convertible mittens.

• I’m teaching a mitten class at The Yarn Sellar, so naturally I decided that I need a new pair of mittens.  I knit on them when I could during the class and haven’t looked at them since (the class was last Wednesday). The final class is next Wednesday and I’d like to have one finished and one at the point of where I told the class to be (decreases at top of the hand). Maybe I will; maybe I won’t.  I haven’t taken any pictures of the mitten in progress yet. Maybe next post, then again, maybe not.

• That's all I've got.

• Have a great night!

 

Shamelessly Stealing Ideas

It's Wednesday (for about another hour) and I've decided to steal the idea follow the lead of the Sheep and do a WNBP (Wednesday Night Bullet Post).  Here goes:

• Today was a holiday here in the U.S. - Independence Day, better known as "the Fourth of July".  Most people celebrate with BBQ's and fireworks; not me.  What'd I do today?  I went to the gym with Patti first thing this morning, came home and floated in the pool for a couple hours, took a nap on the couch for a couple hours, had takeout from "York's Best Roast Beef & Seafood Rest." (that's really the name) for dinner - YUMMY, knit for a while, and now posting on the blog.



• I know you are all wondering how I can stand all the excitement, but to me, this was a perfect day.



• I finally posted the Haymarket Bag pattern.  There's a link in the sidebar. (If you make it and find a mistake, please let me know)

• I started my Sockapalooza pal's socks on Sunday and finished the first one tonight. 

Yarn:  Socks that Rock, medium weight, Monsoon colorway (Feb 07 club yarn)

Pattern:  Waffle Rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks by Charlene Schurch

• We had a great "Chicks with Sticks" night last night at the Yarn Sellar. Mel and Annie were there, as well as Doug (whose in town for a few weeks). It was really a good time. Annie, Patti, and I ended up staying for quite a while afterward just chatting.  It was a really good night and I only had to rip out a few rows of the sock.  I guess I can't do anything more complicated than straight stockinette when I'm gabbing.



• I reserved my room for SPA 6 today.  It's going to be in Freeport in February.  Hurry and make your reservations if you're going (and you definitely should be going if at all possible)!



• Amanda is having a contest; all you have to do is answer some questions (all the answers are in her previous posts). 



• My first spindle spun yarn:

(sorry the pic is so blurry)

I finished this on Saturday and soaked it and hung it to dry overnight.  I'm not sure how much there is, certainly enough for a baby hat or something small.  I still have more of the same fiber to spin.  I love the colors and I'm pretty happy with the yarn (although you can definitely tell which part is the beginning!).

• Bloglines tells me I have 147 posts to read.  I had planned on catching up today, but was busy floating and sleeping and eating.  Guess I'll have to catch up tomorrow.



• I am taking vacation time tomorrow and Friday; my plan was to float in the pool, but given the forecast, I don't think there'll be much of that.  Oh well at least I won't be working :-)



• It is now almost Thursday so I guess I'll stop here and go to bed.

Goodnight.

Chicks with Sticks

This is kind of part 2 to the last post.  If ever you are in or around York on a Tuesday night, you absolutely must come to the Yarn Sellar at 7pm to knit with the Chicks with Sticks. You don't even have to be a Chick, men are welcome; as a matter of fact, I've been wanting a guy to start knitting with us just so we can change the name of the group to "Chicks and Dicks with Sticks" ;-)  This is a great group of fun people to knit and chat and laugh with.  We give each other encouragement, help, suggestions, ideas, and most of all, friendship. 

Here's a picture of just some of the Chicks:
From left to right: Debbie, Carol, Melissa, Lisa, and Patsy.  This picture was taken before everyone got there.  By 8:00, that table was FULL!  Unfortunately, I'm a bad blogger and didn't get a picture then.

Every Tuesday night is a good time, but this past Tuesday was especially nice.  We had a couple of visitors:

 Melissa and her baby, Rusty. This isn't the best shot, but I was trying really hard to get a picture of Rusty. He's a bit camera shy. Every time he spotted the camera in my hands, he'd turn around. I followed that little guy all night trying to get a decent photo of him.

 

I swear, for every one of those pictures he was looking right at me until I went to click the picture! When I finally did catch him he went and turned on his devil eyes! He really doesn't have evil red eyes. He's such a cutie and he was really well behaved.

We were pleasantly surprised with the return of one of our Chicks who winters in Florida. You could have at least brought some of that warm Florida weather back for us, Carol!

Oh well, welcome back anyway :-)

Lisa brought in the shawl she finished, but she refused to model it for me (brat).

Here's Patti and Debbie holding it up in all it's glory:  

and a close up
Isn't it pretty? And soft! She used Cabana by JCA/Reynolds in some of the loveliest colors. She made this up as she went along. Wonderful, wonderful job, Lisa!

Oh yeah, I can't end this post without showing you the work of one of my star pupils:

Patti has been taking each of the crochet classes I've taught and here she models the Tulip Hat and Scarf she made. She did a fantastic job even with a less than perfect pattern. And I learned why it's important to have someone test any patterns I design! (I've made corrections to the patterns if you're interested.)

There has been knitting going on and squares coming in.  Pictures next time.  Have a great day!

My LYS

A Sheep in Wool's Clothing wants to know the flavor of your  LYS.  She's creating a list of links to yarn shops on her blog.  I've talked about my LYS before, but I've never given you a tour, so here you go.

The Yarn Sellar, York, Maine

The workers are friendly, the yarns are plentiful, the shop is warm and welcoming.  Patti and Roger have stocked the store with many, many beautiful yarns.  A person could spend an entire afternoon in there and not get bored (ask me how I know). 

Here's a little peek inside:

This is Roger; he and his wife, Patti, are the shop owners.

And this is Patti. Check out the nice supply of needles and notions that they carry.  

Randy, one of Patti and Roger's sons. Doesn't he look thrilled to have me taking his picture? He's a good kid :-)

As you walk into the store, the counter where Roger is sitting is to the left of the door. There will always be a smiling, helpful person there to greet you and offer to help you. It won't usually be Roger (I was just lucky to catch him there before Chicks with Sticks on Tuesday), it'll be one of their friendly and helpful staff members, Patsy, Margaret, or Martha.

To the right of the front door, in front of the windows, this is what you'll see.

Sample knits on the walls and in the windows, a table with some of the newer patterns and yarns in the store, and a cusioned bench in front of the window.

This is the display straight ahead as you walk in.

A beautiful selection of baby yarns and a nice variety of  handmade, scented soaps.

The knitting table in the back half of the store; this is where classes are held and Chicks with Sticks meet. You can see the nice selection of Lamb's Pride yarns to the left and the Lopi yarns on the back wall. Here's a view from the other side of the table. You can see the table has been cleared off for Chicks with Sticks (there's my ever present coffee cup; must.always.have.coffee.). On the back wall, you can see the selection of Cascade 220. That's the sock yarn corner next to it and then another wall of yarn. Just look at all those colors!  There is still another wall of yarn which I neglected to get a picture of.

As you can see from these pictures, this is a well stocked, very colorful store.  If you are ever in the area, you definitely want to visit!

I had planned to also post about Tuesday night's Chicks with Sticks get together, but I'm running out of time.  Next post.

Have a great day!