I didn’t knit all day yesterday, as I had hoped, but I’ve got a good start on mom’s sleeve. My knitting sister-in-law is coming over this morning, so I expect to make more progress.

Last night, Nate and I took the girls to the mall. I have well behaved children, but for some reason, they were wild monkeys last night. Nate was beside himself. I bought some clothes. Nate hit the Godiva booth. Mmmm.

Also, I keep forgetting….. Olivia’s friend, Brooke, didn’t get a handmade gift for her birthday. The scary scarf has been pulled from the needles and will be frogged. I was in the grocery store on Friday afternoon, and happened past a little hanger thing in front of the crackers displaying pink Disney Princess jump ropes, with pink and purple rubber beads on the rope. It was $3.99. I thought to myself, “Is not having to knit something I don’t even want to be working on in the next 20 hours worth $3.99?” It was. I didn’t look back.

On Friday, I went to that warehouse that I accidentally discovered while searching for dry ice. Here is the majority of the load.

My friend Gayle bought 24 skeins of assorted colors, and I bought eleven of this

It is a gorgeous taupy/brown color that I have recently fallen in love with. It is the exact same color as the shirt I was wearing when we went there. I bought all they had in that dye lot. They have much more of it in an icelandic unspun wool that I’m going to go back and get for my sister-in-law’s poncho. I wanted to make a blanket out of it, but I can’t afford it all right now.

There is a fabulous red I want, and a pale heathery pink, and, and, and….. Lots of good stuff. It isn’t as amazing a deal as I originally thought though, as it is $3.50 a skein and I saw some comparable yarn at Acorn Street Shop on Saturday for $5.95. Still, it’s cheap. They’ve had it for years, in a box, in their warehouse.

Speaking of Acorn, wow! It was my first time there. It is the best yarn store I’ve ever been to. It’s the only Seattle store I’ve been to, and it kicks all the eastside stores’ butts. The store in Bellevue has a large selection, but they don’t have enough of ANYTHING to make a large project with. They have a few skeins of this, and a few skeins of that. Any yarn I’ve been interested in, I’d have to prepay and special order, then wait for it to come in. What fun is that? Acorn had tons of EVERYTHING. I was in awe. I looked for something to make Abby’s Harry Potter sweater with, and I found some Jo Sharp that was cool, but their blue wasn’t tweedy enough. They had a great maroon, and an excellent color for the letter, but Abby likes Harry, so I’ll keep looking. Acorn is also the first store I’ve been to that has Debbie Bliss’s Alpaca Silk book and yarn. I’ve been wanting to see that in person for a long time. What beautiful stuff! There are only two colors I’d buy for myself, which is good to know. I like the yellow, and the plum. And probably that wine red, which they didn’t have….. I’m rambling.

Ok, so I’ve finished the front to mom’s sweater.

It is definitely a small, cropped little sweater, and it looks really nice. She will probably have to wear a black camisole under it, because the part where the cable meets the bordering purls is kind of loose. It looks fine, but it is a bit see through. Darnit. I’ve begun the first sleeve. There is an insane part of me that wants to finish it before her birthday, which is Thursday, but considering how long the rest of it has taken, it’s not too likely.

I’m thinking I’ll knit a bunch today. I’m feeling mellow, it’s cold and gray outside, and a lazy knitting day sounds most appealing.

I’m off to physical therapy this morning. When I get back, I’ll post the pictures and progress on mom’s sweater, and I’ll tell you all about that crazy yarn place I told you about on Friday. I think I have some pictures of that, too. Later.

Woo HOO! HA-lelujah! We’re shaking things up a bit today. First of all, I’ll give my accounting.

I worked 50 minutes on the treadmill every day this week.
Additionally, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday I did weights.
There were PT stretches in there too, but I don’t want to get up and look at the calendar to know exactly when. I intend to do both upper and lower weights today, and perhaps a light treadmill.

I’ve been snacking on lowfat cottage cheese and crushed pineapple this week. Last night, to insure that I made my weight goal for today, I ate steamed broccoli for dinner.

I have FINALLY officially broke the 20 pound mark, and I did it with a bang. Get ready for it…… 221.5! Hooray! Happy day! The plateau is over!

I am curious how it is possible that my jeans are fitting looser, yet my measurements remain the same…. but I’m not complaining today.

Enough about me…. How is it going out there? What are you doing/eating to be healthy?

Yes, it’s true, I’m married to an intelligent man. He figured out, in about 5 seconds, how to find an individual entry. Happy day. I altered the sidebar so the links aren’t tiny comments windows. Then I decided to go a step further and have the completed projects link to an individual, larger picture. I like it that way. Huzzah! I didn’t size the windows or anything. I can only do so much.

That last statement perfectly leads into my next. I played code monkey on the blog and prepared and taught a class yesterday. I didn’t do any knitting. I still haven’t decided what direction I’m going with Brooke’s birthday gift, however Olivia really likes that gawsh-awful scarf, so maybe I’ll stick with it?

And for something bizarre….. I was trying to find someplace that sells dry ice yesterday, as I needed it for my class. I find it highly annoying that grocery store meat departments are no longer carrying the stuff. I called everywhere, and was referred everywhere, even to the UPS store. I was desperate. I called the UPS store and was laughed at when I posed my request. Oh well. Someone in line at said UPS store knew where I could go, and it would have been successful, if they didn’t end up closing right before Nate got there. (In the end, he stopped by QFC and picked some up. That is the ONLY grocery store I didn’t call, and the REASON I didn’t call is because the FIRST grocery store I called said that QFC for sure didn’t have it. I tell ya.)

THE INTERESTING PART of all of this is that during the wild goose chase, I Googled online and found a place less than 3 miles from me, according to MapQuest, that sells dry ice. They are called Ice-Ame Co. I called with confidence. They don’t sell ice. The phone call went something like this,

me- “Hi there, I’m looking for some dry ice and Google tells me that you sell it.”

her- “Noooooo, we sell wool sweaters.”

me- “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

her- “Our name can be misleading, but we sell wool sweaters.”

me- “Reeeealllly?”

her-“Yes.”

me- “What KIND of wool sweaters?”

her- “We import wool sweaters from Iceland and the Shetland Islands, and we also sell some yarn.”

me- “Reeeealllly?, you seriously sell yarn? You see, you’re about 2 1/2 miles down the road from me, and I didn’t have any idea you were there. Would you happen to sell wool for spinning?”

her- “No, just sweaters and yarn, ready to knit. Are you a knitter?”

me- (inwardly laughing hysterically, almost maniacally at such a question), “Oh yes, every single day. What kind of yarn do you have?”

her- “We sell Lopi yarn, imported from Iceland and we also have shetland wool. We have a limited number of colors, I think they are discontinued shades, and we sell them very cheap. Let’s see here, a 3 1/2 oz skein of 100% wool is…… $3.”

me- still floored I didn’t know about this place, “Um, ok, are you open to the public?”

her- “No, but if you call ahead, I’ll let you in. By the way, did you try Albertson’s?”

me- “Yes. They don’t have any dry ice.”

her- “Well, my daughter got some a couple months ago at the Juanita store. You may want to try there.”

me- “Thank you. So, I could just call you, and arrange a time to come and look at your yarn?”

her- “Yes.”

me- inwardly singing and suddenly loving a complete stranger, “Thank you.”

We said good-bye’s and hung up. Can you believe that? I can’t. I’m kind of stoked. I think I’m going to call later today and check it out.

Alright, here’s the deal….. Olivia has another birthday party to attend. It’s on Saturday. In an effort to save time, I started this scarf…

and it is scary. Nate likes it. I think it has the potential, and I use that word cautiously, to turn out decent once it’s finished and I’ve trimmed the whole thing. It is also possible that it will be even worse when it’s done, and I’d be better off starting a doll right now. In my defense, the pattern I’m loosely following is really cute. This is one of those times, however, when “loosely” isn’t looking to be good enough. I also resent the fact that this contraption will be my first scarf. (Yes, there is the daisy swatch, but for some reason, that doesn’t count).

Maybe I’ll start a doll, and finish the scarf later for one of the girls. Who am I kidding? If I put it down now, I’ll never touch the thing again except perhaps to FROG it!

As of this moment, I seriously have no idea what I’m going to do, or what little Brooke will be receiving for her birthday. (Side note- she has ribbons in her hair EVERY SINGLE DAY!! I’m not kidding. Because of this, Olivia asks for ribbons in her hair NEARLY every day. In the end, she gets them maybe once in a two week period. Brooke must be an only child, and if she isn’t, I don’t want to know.)

I did work on mom’s sweater last night. I can’t say that I got very far, unfortunately. I was making mistakes all over the place. Like forgetting a cable row and not catching it for a couple rows. Or knitting a couple centimeters too far before starting decreases. So I did a whole lot of frogging. Frogging multi-stranded cotton knit into twisted stitch ribbing isn’t very fun. That being said, I didn’t mind THAT much. I was really happy to be sitting down with my needles after a long day.

Veronica has been toilet training, finally, and she wants to go every 10 minutes. She doesn’t do anything every 10 minutes, but I still have to accompany her and assist. The only break I got from that was her spontaneous and uncharacteristic nap.

She fell asleep on my lap while I was messing with my sidebar. See anything different? I can’t figure out how in the world to find the URL to an individual entry in a previous month. I spent way too long trying, to no avail. So my links are mostly to comments pages. I do what I can.

I have a lot to do today that is carryover from my list of things to do yesterday. On the plus side, I cleaned most of my house last night, so I don’t have any catch up to do, I can start fresh and make progress.

My LYS owner wants me to work at her store on Friday nights through the holidays, when the “mall”, for lack of a better word, that she is in mandates later holiday hours. She wants me to recruit a knitting group to come at that time so we can hang out. I think it sounds like fun. I wonder if I can work a good discount on a spinning wheel in exchange.

I did nothing yesterday. No knitting, whatsoever. I did spend a lot of time surfing the net. I indulged myself. Do you want to know what I was looking at? Well…..

Here’s a link, and here’s another. Yup, rabbits and spinning wheels. Let me tell you how productive I felt at the end of the day. Right.

So I’m browsing through the many books I purchased at the warehouse sale on Friday, and I see this cute picture in Beyond Wool.

The reason this stands out to me at this time is because thanks to Stephanie and her schnazzy thrummed mittens, I’ve been handling beautiful, soft roving for days on end. It’s been seducing me. I’ve been thinking about spinning again. I know that in a recent post, I poked fun at my brief bout with spinning, but that was before I spent several days THRUMMING MITTENS and handling the stuff. It beckons.

So I’m reading about cute and fluffy house bunnies, and I think, “ooh, I could grow my own fiber without even violating my neighborhood’s zoning laws. Cool.” Keep in mind that I don’t own a spinning wheel, and have only ever handled one for a few days, over a year ago. Also note that when I gave it back, I had no intention of ever touching one again.

Surprisingly, Nate was supportive. (I tell you, he’s amazing. I even told him I wanted multiple bunnies). However, he has conditions. If the bunnies come, the dog goes. Hardly fair, I know. (I won’t go into it now, because it would take many, many paragraphs to adequately educate you, but trust me when I say that my sweet husband is completely justified in wanting to be rid of the dog. My trainer’s fiance has even said that he wouldn’t have kept at it this long).

Towards the end of the day, I came to my senses and realized that before purchasing and housing fiber-makers, I should further investigate whether or not I would really enjoy spinning. If anyone has leads or helpful info on spinning wheels….. Ok, enough of that.

Want to see what else I’m dreaming about? This one is in Irresistible Knits.

I don’t know why. It isn’t my style. I have never worn anything like it.

I love it.

I’m thinking a deep, mossy green would be lovely. In case you can’t tell, it is a jacket/cardigan over a separate ribbed, mock turtleneck. I would definitely need to be thin. That is note going to be a slimming sweater by any stretch, and it’ll take 10 years to knit one big enough to go around me, but I like it, and I can fantasize.

I hope to make much progress on mom’s sweater today. I also hope to ignore the computer, exercise, lift weights, cook, de-bone and then stew a chicken, do laundry, feed and interact with the children, wash 30 or so buckets, prepare material for a class I’m teaching on Thursday, make a myriad of phone calls, clean clean clean…… am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah, and I want to spin.

First of all, I finished the mittens over the weekend. I like them much more than I thought I was going to.

My mom doesn’t want them. My sister has neither commented on the blog, answered her phone, neither does she have an answering machine. So I don’t know WHAT is going to happen to the mittens. I won’t mind if they stick around for awhile. I have the materials to make another pair, but making the exact same thing twice really bores me. It’s remarkable enough that I made the second mitten, or when I make a second sock in a pair.

I’m back on mom’s sweater. The next row is where I put the neck stitches on a holder and divide the shoulders. I’m looking forward to finishing this one.

Saturday, I’m going yarn shopping with my sister-in-law, Mari. She wants a poncho before moving to Virginia next month, so there will be a new project soon, and it’ll be wool!

And finally, I totally scored on Friday. Martingale & Company had a two day warehouse sale where all books were $3. They mostly publish quilting books, but they had a knitting section, and I came away with fourteen books! $450 in knitting books for about $40. I’m stoked. Three of them I had seen in stores and knew I wanted. Three more I had never seen, but would have bought if I had. The remaining eight I wouldn’t have paid full price for, but each of them have one to three patterns I like, and are therefore well worth the $3 I paid. I’d say it was a great weekend!