It’s been a lovely visit. Soon, we will begin the process of hunting and collecting, trying to find every little sock, toy, dpn, ball of yarn, etc. that will be hiding all over the house. Over the past few days, I’ve happened to come across these items between couch cushions, under beds, and stuffed in corners everywhere. Kids are busy.

Last night, I worked on Grandma’s sock some more. It is coming along nicely. I’ve finished the gusset and am starting down the path to the toe. The other one is still as it was in the picture. Koigu is so pretty.

I am leaving my finerless mitts with mom. She thinks they’ll be great for work. Anne got the thrummed mittens. (I’d link them for you, but WebTV is no picnic to navigate, and you have the sidebar for reference). I’m glad she likes them. She hadn’t seen them on the blog. Anne gave me a hat she created, I’ll post a picture when I get back.

Now for the local yarn stores….. They’re both pretty cool. Gossamer Threads is small,but they have a lot of GGH, which I haven’t seen up in Seattle, or I hadn’t noticed at least. Very friendly. I found a yarn I think would look fabulous as the Cable-Eight top we’re knitting along here in a bit. It’s GGH’s Aspen. I need to find some online. I liked almost every color I saw there. The second store, Juniper Fiberworks, was bigger, and had some lovely yarn, but it was all laid out by color. I HATE that! I find it very frustrating when looking for something specific. I tend to go into a project with a yarn, fiber content, and weight in mind, NOT a color. Color is my last criteria, usually, because I’ll choose the right yarn and then look to see what colors they have available. It just seems so inefficient to me. BUT, they had Koigu. LOTS of koigu. They had a color I was drooling over, and the saleswoman took that as an opportunity to tell me about Sally Melville. She had been there recently, holding workshops, and she had apparently been wearing the Koigu gauntlets that are in her Purl Stitch book. I hadn’t looked through that book. Now I am dreaming of Koigu fingerless mitts. I must make some. Although, the pattern, (which I don’t have) uses stockinette stitch, and I would prefer ribbing. Maybe an uneven rib, such as 3×1 or something. Anyway, I was excited to find another use for Koigu that would only take a couple skeins.

I’d better go. See you all from home tomorrow! Oh and one more thing, Nate has had to bump up my bandwidth two or three times in the last week. I suppose I’m getting read more, but I’m also wondering how to tell if I’m being hotlinked. Can anyone help with this? We have a page we can look at to see what’s being requested, and I haven’t seen anything particularly strange, but I really don’t know how to tell for sure.