A small update

Just popping in to say Hi. I don't have any knitting photos for you right now, nor do I have any finished knitting to report on. So instead I'll post this photo from Vermont last weekend. More on that later.



I have been doing some knitting, but mainly I've been doing a little reorganizing, especially regarding my notebook of completed knitting. I like to keep detailed notes on my knitting projects when I'm done with them, and the system I'd devised for myself was nice but very labor-intensive, and it was bringing me down and making me dread it, and just wasn't working for me anymore. It involved printing a template I'd created onto card stock and then printing photos of the projects and attaching them...and it was just too much. I am trying to simplify my life! So I am in the process of transferring my completed knitting project notes to a nice new notebook. Plain and simple, nothing fancy. Don't worry...I won't go on and on about it any more here! ;o) But now I can't relax until this project is done, so I am doing more of that instead of knitting.

Anyway, here and there I've still been working on knitting my Fall Embossed Leaves socks and the first one is coming out really neat, I'm past the heel and onto the foot now. I will post a photo of it as soon as I'm done. I should be able to finish it this weekend as I am heading up to Rhode Island to visit my best friend. I am flying up but taking the train back so I'll have lots of lovely knitting time! So hopefully next week I'll have a photo of it to share with you.

Oh, in other news, I ordered some more yarn. (hehe). But only a little, I swear. ;o) I was drooling over the Anemoi Mittens pattern and I got some KnitPicks Essential yarn to make them. I am using that yarn for my Embossed Leaves socks and it's so soft I figured it would make great mittens too. I went on Ravelry and looked around at other people's mittens to see what color combinations would work best. I noticed that the ones with two high contrast colors looked best, although that's such a pretty pattern that I am sure any colors would look great. But the colors that jumped out at me the most were pink and white (of course!). So that's what I decided on for my mittens and I got a ball of the pink (Petunia) Essential and then a skein of their "Bare" yarn (in the equivalent to Essential). And then since the white will (hopefully) be enough for two pairs, I also got a ball of the green (Grass) color to make some mittens for my friend.

Oh wait! I have another yarn story. A couple of weekends ago, we went up to visit my in-laws. That's when we had the baby shower for my sister-in-law for which I was making the sweater and booties. (Which, by the way, got a great response from the mom-to-be and also everyone at the shower. hee! It was fun to have my work appreciated. They actually applauded!...which made me a tiny bit uncomfortable, actually, but was still nice.)

Anyway...so, the day after the shower we all went for a drive to Vermont (they live near Albany) which is a traditional family outing every fall. The day usually includes a picnic in the park, leaf catching (when you try and catch falling leaves, and you get a dime from my father-in-law if you catch one), a hike in a park, stops at a couple of favorite shops, including the ever-popular stop at the Chocolate Barn where we all get chocolates and then sit on the hill and eat them. This year was a tad rainy and damp so there were minor adjustments to be made, although we did find a covered picnic area where we still managed to have our picnic, and went for a walk around a lake (pictured below). Leaf-catching was a bit sparse as it was early in the season, and the trees weren't letting go of them yet. But the day was still a lot of fun and the fog that rolled in made it very pretty.



(But I digress, yet again. I promised a yarn tale...)

SO...before we left the house my sweet sister-in-law looked up yarn stores in Vermont and found one that was on our way! And they stopped there! For me! Isn't that cool? I kept insisting that we didn't need to, but they were very sweet about it. So I made my choice quickly. I got a skein of the famous Malabrigo in a gorgeous turquoisey blue. I am on a turquoise kick lately. It's as soft as I had heard it was and I am now trying to figure out what to make. I want it to be special, and I'm thinking scarf since it's so delightfully soft. It's worsted weight, and about 216 yards. A decent amount for a scarf, I think. If nothing else comes to me, I'll just make a long narrow ribbed scarf with big needles, and I think that'll yield something nice that I can snuggle up to.

The yarn store we went to was called Black Sheep Yarns in Dorset, VT. It doesn't seem to have a website. The ladies there were very sweet, and it appeared to be in a new building that was on someone's property. There was a house there and some little dogs that ran up to the fence, so our nieces and nephews were entertained by the dogs while I looked at yarn. So that was a really fun end to a really fun day!

Guess that's it from here for now. Happy Knitting!