Oakland TKCGA show.

Yeah, so it isn't Stitches, but you can go up and do it in half a day and get some stuff and have a good time. I went up with my best pal Teenuh, her MIL (in town visiting) and my mom. We parked for free out on the street. Strolled into the lobby about half an hour before opening, busted out our coupons and bought our tickets, only to be pleasantly surprised with GOODY bags!! Woo Hoo! They were apparently the goody bags for the people who preregistered for classes, which they had left over and were giving them out to all the early arrivals. We got a big bag from Red Heart that had an assortment of balls inside, (there was only 1 of these inside, but my mom gave me hers, citing that she would never use it.)There (and she traded me another ball not pictured for her matching ball of this washable wool) as well as a fabulous large black tote from Lion Brand Yarn that had 3 balls of hot pink Wool Ease and a pair of lion size 6 plastic needles inside, as well as a coordinating scarf pattern. Sweet! Everyone loves free, even if it isn't your favorite yarn on Earth, damnit! It's free!

So then we waited a bit, met some friendly ladies out in the lobby. Finally we got to go inside. The Village Knitting and Spinning Store was there from Solvang, CA they have the BEST selection of knitting books (never cheap!) with hard to find American selections as well as some really awesome German books. Of course I am such an idiot, I always buy books early on then have to carry them around until my shoulder feels as it will fall off. Well, actually my Mom came along and she bought them for me for Christmas so I had to carry them all day, but can't use them until after Christmas. We meandered around and I picked up some fabulous yarns.... Zephyr wool silk from Terylynn Needle arts
A beaded scarf kit, with Interlacements yarn and beads.
Then my very last purchase was this Silk Crack, as I have been referring to it. It is a soft, shiny beautiful, ultrafine silk yarn. It cost me an arm and a leg and some of my dignity, but I got it anyway. It is too marvelous for words, in my favorite peacock colors!! I could just sleep with this in my hands... Now this is something like 5,400+ yds. But I plan on holding 3 strands together at a time to accomplish what it is I want to accomplish, effectively cutting my yardage to 1/3 of that to 1,800 yards. Yippee. The booth people had made a beautiful sock out of this, with a size 000 needle, not in my future plans at all!!!

Still Alive.
Still knitting. I finished sock 1 of my Regia Designer Line Kaffe Fasset socks. They look quite nice. If I had made them a tad bit smaller they wouldn't have fit my feet. Whew! Close call on that. Sorry I haven't had time to take a picture yet. I just turned the heel on the second sock. So now I am in the home stretch. The good news is, they are a PERFECT match! Yahoo! This weekend it sounds like we will be rounding up quite the posse to go to the Oakland TKGA market place on Sunday. It is no where NEAR the size of Stitches, but it is always fun to shop a bunch of corralled yarn stores and feel like you can spend money... because I would NEVER walk into my LYS (any one of the 10 located around here) and dish out the dollars like I do at a yarn show... I know, sad case. I always feel like the thing I am looking at that I am liking, I will most certainly NEVER see it again so I had better buy it RIGHT now or regret it for the rest of my knitting life. Yeah, so the drama.

I am almost done with those socks, so I need to pick my next project. I am beginning to feel slightly panicked at not knowing what to knit next. Maybe some socks with that Panda Cotton picked up a couple of weeks ago. I am feeling slightly commitmentphobic about starting anything big that will take too long to finish because I just don't have a lot of time between soccer, Tae Kwon Do, and all the things I keep suckering myself into doing at the school. Anyone want to peel any box tops for me? We had a Bunco-tastic time on Tuesday with a theme bunco. It was hysterical fun. Looks like we are going to need to pick up at least 2 more players next year when we renew our year, anyone want to join?

Well, it took long enough, but DD's Tender Heart Shawl is finally finished. Helen's Halfpint Farms Sock (superwash and tencel) 540 yds. purchased at Stitches West. I had about 6 feet of yarn left over when I was finished. It is worked from the top center out. With columns of hearts running outward and garter stitch columns in between. The finished size is much larger than I thought it was going to be (my guess was 35"x15"), 52" wide by 23" long and I didn't even do a hard block, I did a pretty soft block. I am always thrown off by how much lacy things grow when they are blocked. It is going to be pretty big for her, but at least she can wear it for a while without out growing it, she can wear it until she gets tired of it, or refuses to wear hearts or bright colors anymore. Which probably will be sooner than I would hope. *sob, sob*The bright pictures show the actual color, the darker, salmon colored pictures are just my camera not cooperating and my photoshop isn't working so I couldn't correct the color! This is definitely some of the brightest yarn I have ever seen. Once I finally got my pattern worked out this was very easy to make. In theory I think this shawl could be cranked out in like a week if you worked at it industriously and didn't goof off at the beginning hoping the pattern was right and then dawdle at the end trying to figure out what kind of edging you were putting on the bottom. I spent a week approaching the end and trying to decide if I should put a chevron type edge, or a lacy edge, or a rounded edge, or fringe, and finally when I thought I had decided I notice that I hardly had any yarn left and the only edge I could do was the one that matched the rest of the edging with the yo's and the garter stitch rows. If I had paid any attention sooner, I wouldn't have wasted the time thinking about it! BTW, DD is already in bed and she didn't see it when it was blocking, so she doesn't even know it is done yet. I suppose I'll let you know what she thinks of it later on.... Cross your fingers!

Too busy to knit!??!!

I didn't knit a stitch all weekend! Friday after school was Rehersal for BIL's wedding. It was long and ran over and the 7:30 rehersal dinner at Uncle Chongs (EVIL!!) Chinese Restaurant didn't start serving food until freakin' 8:45 at which point a bowl of warmish dishwater soup was served to the crew of 100 people waiting. 20 minutes later the next dish came out. We had early soccer games on Saturday (9am game time + arriving early to warm up + field set up = 8:15 am field arrival time = leaving the house at 8 am = getting up at 6:45 and getting the kids up by 7:20 am) so needlesss to say by the time the 3rd dish came out (9:15pm) I had convinced the kids to eat their fill of what was there and was packing up to leave. We drove back home from Union City, brushed the kids teeth and tucked them in a meer 2.5 hours after bedtime.

Get up early. Game on. Both teams played exciting action filled games. I had the grandparents RUSH DD home and get her in the shower while I reminded the team about photo day and packed up the game gear. I get home, shower fast, get dressed fast (well okay I took 10 minutes to put on my panty hose, but it isn't easy with the socks over my hands and I only had 2 pairs and couldn't afford to rip them and have to put on another pair). 20 minutes after arriving at home, I have showered, dressed and styled my hair, I pack up DD and take her to Blush at the mall for a makeover, where they try to tell me I got bumped out of my appointment for not prepaying the day before when I called in for the fucking appointment!? Why the hell do they have appointments if they don't honor them and they don't tell you when you call the day before for an appointment that you have to prepay that day or lose your spot? So when I almost explode, standing there in my panty hose and dress and heels with my make-up compact in my hand and my jewelry in a bag in my hand that I am trying to put on, because they are telling me I no longer have and appointment for DD, they cower away a little bit staring up at the very angry now 6 foot tall (remember those heels) big gal glaring at her with laser beams coming out her eyes and then they take her to a vanity and fix her up . They fix up DD in about 20 minutes (updo, make-up, nails, the works, they are quick). And we are merrily on our way to meet DS and DH (Who upon picking up his Tux on Thurs tries it on, only to have me spot a tiny 4 inch tear in the back of the jacket and has had to go there on Sat to pick up new tux because obviously we didn't have enough to worry about). As a last minute thought, that turned out to be a good plan because we didn't eat again until 6 pm, a quick drive through McD's drive through, back home, eat, finish getting the kids dressed, jump in the car and GO!

We drive up to the church in Union City, arrive 10 minutes prior to when we were supposed to be there (can you believe that I got the NOTORIOUS DH to an event on time!?) and then wait. It felt a lot better to be waiting there, on time, than at home! Amazingly the wedding starts on time. DD proudly acts as flower girl and DS does an excellent and very serious job of being Ring Bearer. We finish with a thousand pics. DD, BIL, MIL, SIL, DH, DS, and me etc. ( I am of course the Amazon in the picture....) Then off to reception. It was very nice. It just took the wedding planners SO long to finally let people dance on the dance floor (reception let in at 7 pm, they didn't start the open dancing until about 9:30) that they had just started and I insisted that the kids and I catch a ride home with my Mom and Dad who were also in attendance. DH didn't like that. He was all mad, like a petulant child that I made the kids leave. DS had actually asked to go home. He was tired. He had gotten up early and played all 4 quarters in an hour long soccer game. As well as performing his very serious duty of Ring Bearer (the priest told him to guard the rings and coins (this was a Filippino wedding) with his life, so he was all worried and took it VERY seriously). So I was obliging to take him home and his sister as well, because as luck would have it, we also had to take out team pictures for Soccer on Sunday morning. We had an early time slot to boot! So we left at 9:50 and DH stayed until 11:15 when they turned on the lights and told everyone to go home... So

Sunday we got up early and got our team pics taken (9:30 am) and stayed at the opening day activities for too long. Grandma and Grandpa picked up the kids at lunch and took them out to play at a park. We spent the day at Sports Authority and Tuesday Morning after dropping off the Tuxes at Men's Warehouse. I think DH wanted to do more, but my Asthma was very bad and it was quite restricting in my ability to get around. So I spent more of my Sunday sitting on a bench in Sports Authority than one should have to. I have a husband who quite enjoys shopping... We took the kids to Armadillo Willy's for Dinner and got back after bed time, it was a relief to get home on Sunday night (9:15 pm), and get the kids in bed, until I realized I should have made some flyers for the Home and School Club and set to work on that until about 1:30 am. Now they are printed and distributed and I no longer have to worry about them. So I should finally have at least a little bit of time to get some knitting done.

I am down to the last repeat of the Tenderheart Shawl. So only about 20 rows to go. Just as I am nearing the home stretch, it occurs to me that I should probably put some nice lace edge on it, instead of the 3 row wide garter stitch I was going to finish it in (like the rest of the shawl). Now I can't decide. Boogers. That is all I have to say, and every time my precious daughter catches me knitting my KF sock, she glares and at and says, "Well, where is MY shawl, huh? When are you going to finish or are you just going to keep making socks for YOURSELF!?" Man, being guilt tripped by a child. Yeah, so what if I started this months ago and it is taking me ages to finish something pretty small and everything else I do is done is 2 months or less. What's the problem? Sheesh, slave driver.