Chi-town

Hi all! I went to Chicago for a few days this week. My friend, Don, moved there a year ago and I've been meaning to visit and the time finally came. He had warned me that it was cold, but I thought living in Boston would've prepared me. It didn't! It was in the 20s, but I swear it felt about 20 degrees colder. Bitter bitter cold!

I did a lot of sight seeing (Millennium Park, architecture boat tour, all the 'hoods) and even got to go see a taping of "Oprah." It was so fun and just great to get away for a few days. Oprah was actually kind of amazing--she looked great! She enthused about Obama! Suze Orman was on the show and now I don't want to spend any money at all.

My only knitting related news from the trip is that I did go to Nina knitting boutique in Wicker Park (which, by the way, is an awesome part of town--cool shoppes, restaurants, etc.). It was a lovely boutique and early on a Saturday morning it was buzzing with excited knitters, which was fun.

You can see all my pics here.

Spoils of Rhinebeck

It really was amazing.

In addition to the great conversations with Simone and Brianna on the trip down, I was really lucky to meet and/or hang out with severely awesome peeps, including the folks from Spunky Eclectic, numerous cool Canadians, MickeyO from Hudson Valley Sheep & Wool Co., Sean and Stephen from Sean's Soapbox and Hizknits (respectively) and of course the fabulous family of Mistress njstacie, who were kind enough to let me stay and brought my considerable haul back into the Boston area.

Rhinebeck the Fair turned out to be a quite traditional fall festival (with the addition of insane-o fiberaddicts). Then Ravelry.com threw a most excellent party on Saturday night and the next day, Lesley of the Dolin clan treated us to a tour of a friend's beautiful home restoration AND some delicious squash and apple soup.

SO, while the people were the true heart of the experience, the fiber was pretty fantabulous as well. To whit:


4 oz of gorgeously dyed cormo from Foxhill Farms, in process.


Icelandic and Shetland batts from Hudson Valley.

I was instructed by my spinning guru, njstacie, to pick out 2 oz of stuff I wanted to try and go for the gold with the stuff I knew I liked. So here are some bits - Lamb and Llama on the top and Corriedale on the bottom. Ironjohn showed me how to spin the Corriedale on Stacie's spindle on Saturday night. You can see by how much is left over how great a drop-spindler I am.


Gorgeous lace-weight icelandic that Seanie gave me. SO nice of him since I very much coveted it but was trying to be controlled in my yarn purchases.

George McFly's favorite merino/angora blend from Delly's Delights Farm.

The yarn I couldn't resist. 1 cone of from Bartlett's and 2 skeins of a natural dyed spun mohair/wool blend.

A good time had by all. And I think the gods are still with me, as I went to the Goodwill in Davis Square recently and got all these great books for less that $10!



I'm praying the luck holds through Tuesday!

A Tale of Two Shawls

A co-worker of mine had surgery last week and I wanted to knit something comforting. The Simple Yet Effective shawl was on my Rav queue for a while.

So, I picked up some Noro Silk Garden Light. When I picked it up I tried to push through to see all the colors. I know that Noro always has a few surprises, but boy was I surprised when these skeins had this bright pink and acid green/yellow colors. I kept knitting because I know all the colors are intentional and critical in the Noro yarns. I kept knitting; I love the pattern. After I finished I realized that I didn't like the pink and acid green colors. . . the more I looked at it, the more I hated it. Like, really hated it.

I ended up turning right around and re-knitting this pattern in Hempwol in this great tweedy green. I'd been wanting to use this yarn for a while and this seemed like the perfect chance. I just knew it would turn out to be more satisfying. No surprises with the Hempwol, but I'm so much happier with this shawl.

The pattern is great because it's simple and sort of hypnotic. Good to knit while watching TV. If anyone wants a new wave shawl, let me know!