Black Sheep Gathering

"Baa baa black sheep
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir
Three bags full."

Yup, I’m headed to Black Sheep Gathering in Eugene this weekend! Tomorrow afternoon I go down to my parents’ home in the Portland area, and then Saturday morning my mom and I will drive to Eugene, and stay there that night.

I keep telling myself I don’t want to spend a lot of money, as I have *plenty* of fiber stash—I’ve easily acquired SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy)—but who am I kidding? Maybe this year I’ll invest in tools: a new spindle, a niddy noddy, a set of cards? Or maybe this is the year to blow it all on a small bundle of something expensive…

Stash Enhancement

Saturday was a lot of fun. I got up much too early, met up with two of my friends, and drove north. We hit five yarn shops and five quilt shops, dropping one from my original list (the one in Anacortes, off to the west of the rest of the shops), but adding another that was only a couple blocks from one of the quilt shops. I came home with a lot of fabric, two quilt patterns, free knitting patterns from the yarn shops (part of the official shop hop festivities), a panel for an advent calendar, and yarn for two pairs of socks and a sweater. We're talking serious stash enhancement.

Some of the sock yarn is a skein of that TOFUtsies yarn people are talking about. I can't wait to try it, but I'm forcing myself to finish at least one other pair of socks before casting on for these.

The sweater yarn is ggh Soft Kid, for a sweater out of Rebecca magazine, the same wrap cardigan that Wendy knit a while back. I've had the pattern since then, but stumbled across the yarn by accident this weekend. I was not nearly as successful at telling myself not to start this project--I'm halfway through the back of it already! (This is why I'm not known for my patience...)

All in all, it was a particularly fun birthday trip. One of the quilt stores we visited was having a party, celebrating becoming a Janome dealer, so I got to have cake (without all those leftovers sitting around my house...), and I even had "Happy Birthday" sung to me by a high school choir. Well, okay, not exactly to me--they were doing a fundraiser in front of a shop where we stopped to get coffee, and a couple of people walked out with a balloon bouquet with birthday balloons just as we were walking in. The timing was perfect!

So, anyway, happy birthday to me!

And Now for Something Completely Different...

What do you say when you meet the Dark Lord of the Sith?

Neat Online Toy

A friend posted recently about Google Maps about the new My Maps function. So, I thought I’d give it a try.

With yarn and quilt shops, of course.

This Saturday, there’s a yarn shop hop happening here in NW Washington, and a couple of friends and I are going to a few of the shops. (Seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate my birthday.) Rather than trying to get to all the yarn shops, we’re taking the opportunity to go to some quilt shops in the area, since we don’t normally get up there.

So, I plugged several shops into the map, and can now use it to get directions for each shop. Pretty slick!

I’m so excited to have won Susan’s contest! I’ve been eyeing her Spring Things shawl pattern since she posted it, but Paypal and I don’t get along. Winning the pattern is just great.

I’ll be going stash diving this afternoon, as I think I have some yarn that will work for the shawl, and I’m going to give in to startitis, and just go for it with this pattern. Assuming the yarn works, that is… And that I can find it, for that matter. I packed a lot of my stash away into big plastic tubs and stored them in the garage, and now actually finding things again can be a bit of a crap shoot. Sometimes I can locate them, sometimes they seem to have ended up in Douglas Adams’ alternate universe with the ballpoint pens and spare socks.

The timing of this contest is wonderful, actually. Firstly, I was in the LA area for my own quick trip (a college friend was getting married) a week and a half ago. I didn’t get to an Angels game like Susan did, but I did go to the Getty Center. I think I must have stood against the same railing she did when she took her picture, just a week before she was there.

The other good part of the timing is that DH and I are going on a long weekend trip this weekend. We’re going to stay at a B&B just outside of Leavenworth, WA, and plan on doing as close to absolutely nothing as possible. Which, of course, is the perfect time to start a new knitting project! Especially something like lace, which needs a measure of concentration. I can sit in our lovely suite, stretch out in front of the fireplace (Leavenworth is in the mountains—when we were there at this time last year, there was snow on the ground), and knit. Ahhhh…

Pictures!

New stuff in the mail:


New socks:


New quilt blocks:



While we're at it, older quilt blocks:


New haircut:

I'm not sure about this one...

You Are Olive Green

You are the most real of all the green shades. You're always true to yourself. For you, authenticity and honesty are very important... both in others and yourself. You are grounded and secure. It takes a lot to shake you. People see you as dependable, probably the most dependable person they know.

What Color Green Are You?

Across the Rainbow Bridge

Shiva
1995-2007

For Blue Moon Fiber Arts

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

--Pablo Neruda