Stash Saturation Point

I don't know if such a thing exists but I think I may have reached it. I went to a lovely yarn store last week with my Sis (Wool and Company in St. Charles, IL) and I could find nothing that wanted to come home with me. Plenty of beautiful yarn to buy but nothing that I was even remotely interested in purchasing. No alpaca lace, no colorful sock yarn, no indie dyers, no cashmere. Nothing. I'm not even upset that I wasn't excited about the yarn. Very odd. :-)

Pea Vines Update
I'm a little over halfway through the first chart. I've managed to catch and correct knitting errors fairly easily so far. Markers for each repeat help a whole lot in that regard. It doesn't look like the mobile version of blogger will post photos from my phone or I'd share. I still love the yarn and the color.

An "Interesting" Start to the Day....

The middle lane on the road to work was closed this morning. Drivers were not, however, really noticing the big flashing sign with the arrows pointing to the open left and right lanes.  So traffic was backing up as the middle lane vehicles tried to merge at the last minute into the other lanes.  And some drivers didn't notice the slowing traffic until the last minute.

Like the big F-250 pickup truck behind me.

Fortunately the driver had the sense to swerve smoothly onto the shoulder rather than slamming into the back of my little car.

Here's the fun part....

When the truck actually stopped, the front bumper was about even with the front of the passenger compartment of my car.

I suspect had the truck actually hit me, the bumper would have stopped about halfway through the passenger compartment, after pushing the rear of the car into me and me into the engine compartment.

That would have most definitely put a crimp in my plans for the day, not to mention the next few months or years.

I debated buying a lottery ticket today since I got tremendously lucky in avoiding a nasty bad accident today.  Perhaps I'll do that tomorrow. :o)

Domestic Travel Knitting

I decided against starting Sis' socks. I've been plugging away at the Tri-Cities socks (SpillyJane's Pittsworth pattern). However, as this pattern requires rather a lot of attention due to a goodly amount of cabling, it seemed to me that it's not really good travel or "visiting with relatives" knitting. So the socks will stay home while I trek off to Chicago and then the state of Georgia (as opposed to the country of Georgia I usually visit).

I made use of a KnitSpot gift certificate tonight and purchased Pea Vines, among several other shawl/stole patterns. I think the blue-green Hazel Knits yarn I just purchased will look stunning in this pattern. The shawl is knit from the point to the neck. Once I get past the border, it shouldn't be too bad to knit in the presence of company. If nothing else, it will give me an excuse to pet my beautiful yarn.

Initially, I thought I would make the Tall size, but am on the verge of deciding to knit the petite size instead. It occurs to me that a 80 inch wide triangular shawl is probably a wee bit too large for 65" me. The 60 inch version ought to be plenty big enough without being overwhelming. I'll end up with some yarn left over, but I'm ok with that. I can make some wristers or a cowl or use it as an accent color on something else.

Finishitis!

I have, in the past few weeks, managed to finish three pair of socks!!  The first were my green/brown Nutkins.
 
Then I finished Boy's Zombie socks. (no picture, I'm afraid). Both of these were travel knitting projects on my last journey to Tbilisi.  Today I finished off a pair of parrot-colored Fawkes socks for me.

There is one more pair of socks awaiting a second sock--my Tri-Cities socks (pattern: Pittsworth by SpillyJane).  I haven't decided if I want to start the second sock or if I want to start a new pair for my sister.  I've already got Sis' sock yarn and pattern bundled up, awaiting my decision.

Serial Knitters

I visited a new-to-me yarn store while in the Seattle area over the weekend.  Boy and I drove over so Boy could buy a new car.  We stayed in Bellevue and popped up to Kirkland to visit Serial Knitters after breakfast on Saturday.  Quite by coincidence, it happened to be Anniversary Weekend for the shop, so nearly everything in the store was 20% off.  I only wish I lived closer to the shop. The shop staff are very friendly and the crew of knitters hanging out in the back were just fun.  Too bad it's such a long drive over to sit and knit!!

I brought home five skeins in three colors. One Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Tart (not fart as I initially read it), two Hazel Knits Artisan Sock in Aquarius and two Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Sequoia. The red yarn is destined to become a new pair of socks for me as I'm wearing out my one pair of red socks.  The other two yarns might become a  pair of medium-sized shawls rather than just socks (or maybe a small shawlette/scarf with matching socks). The blue-green Hazel Knits yarn is far too pretty to mostly hide under pants and in shoes. 

Fall Projects

Without even considering the projects I already have in progress, I got to thinking today about what knitted items would be nice to have in my wardrobe this fall.  I thought it would be nice to have a couple of medium-weight cardigans and maybe a pullover or two.

Wouldn't you know, I just happen to have these very items already in progress!!  Looks like I'll have to get off my duff and finish the orange and green cardigans as well as the February Lady Pullover and the Freedom Sweater that were started years ago (close to ten years ago on the Freedom Sweater).  The green sweater needs to have its sleeves re-knitted since they are waaaaaaaay too snug.  I don't remember where I was at on the orange mohair cardigan.  The February Lady Pullover got set aside in favor of the February Lady Cardigan that I knit for my sister's birthday a couple years ago. (She couldn't decide which version she wanted and I happened to buy enough yarn for one of each so I decided that I'd get the version she didn't pick.)

There will, of course, have to be sock knitting as well.  Sis picked out and purchased yarn for at least two, if not three, pair of socks.  I've got the yarn matched up with patterns already and just need to do the knitting.  My current stash of handknit socks is wearing thin, so I have to keep up with the replenishment knitting (which frankly isn't as much fun as just knitting for the heck of it).  I'll have to come up with some crazy scheme to make that more fun.