I am a winner- again!

What a great way to cap off a great knitting/spinning week! I just received an e-mail from Phyllis at SpinKnitandlife that I won her blog contest and will be receiving some luscious fiber she calls a ditty batt to spin up and I cannot wait for it to arrive so I can give it a spin. Other than the blog award nomination from Needles of Iron , and some of her fabulous iris she sent me late in summer, this is the only other thing I have won.

On Thursday, I joined my knitting buddy for lunch at the new Corner Bakery restaurant in Highlands Ranch. It was a gorgeous Indian Summer day and we sat out on the patio catching up. By the way, they have some of the most delicious Rugalach I have had in the Denver area. I was very impressed and happy. I make it myself sometimes, but it is so labor intensive that I don't make it too often. Now I have a great place to satisfy my craving for this delicacy. The link takes you to a recipe (not mine) but but looks good as well.

Anyway, after lunch, we went to Tattered Cover to knit and enjoy sharing our WIP's. I brought most of my purchases from Rhinebeck to show her and I enjoyed seeing her progress on her Nantucket Jacket. Stacy has such a calm voice and mellow personality, that I really enjoy spending time with her to keep me sane in an insane world.

On Saturday, I was had the opportunity to meet Becky if Iron Needles fame in person for the first time. She had driven to Denver to have lunch with a college friend and we met after that at the Lamb Shoppe in Denver. That was a great experience to meet in person and I think we hit it off famously. What is interesting is that I felt immediately comfortable with her as if I had known her for years, and we were sharing things that are too difficult to get into with the blog. I am sure we will meet again next time we have a chance. Too bad we didn't know each other while the girls were at CSU, since she lives in Ft Collins.

I have been working at cleaning out and organizing all my WIP's that are scattered about the house. I finished spinning the last singles from my louet Northern Lights fiber, and have decided to make a Clapotis with it. There will be 4 balls of 3-ply fiber when I finish plying the last group of singles. I started and finished the first sock of my new Monkey Socks using the Regia Galaxy that I took to the east coast, but I never got around it it while traveling. On the second sock, I just started the pattern after the cuff. Look at my new sock blockers, size medium from Fiber Trends. I had been thinking about these for a while, but since I was hanging out for a few hours at a new LYS, I splurged and bought them there.

I wound the Misti Alpaca lace weight into a ball to begin a scarf using the pattern "Simple Vine" by Ruth Hirsiger. I picked up this pattern at Rhinebeck from Windy Valley Muskox. The pattern calls for Qiviut fiber, but I couldn't afford that. I cast on using size 6 needles, but I didn't like the way that looked, so I will begin again using 4's. .................to be continued.

Catching up

I realized now that I never revealed my yarn purchases from my recent trip to Europe. You all have seen my sock yarn that I bought with the needles in Prague, but here are the rest, purchased in a small shop in Volkach, Germany. I was a little disappointed that the shop had only commercial type yarn and no handspun/hand dyed or really unique yarns to fondle. I was glad to see, however, that most of the towns we stopped in for touring at least had a yarn store at all. A big thing in all the shops was yarn for knitting the colors of the favorite soccer teams of the area into scarves. Not being that type of fan, I concentrated on sock yarn! I also wish I had more time to try to chat with the owner, but I had only about 10 minutes between the Wine Tasting and getting back to the bus. Maybe, if I had more wine (or less) things would have gone differently.



On a different note: Last Friday, I entered cell phone HELL when I lost my cell somewhere between the Food Court at the mall and driving home from work. I cleaned out my car, purse, locker, pockets and looked throughout my workplace, to no avail. "Why don't you call your number and see if anyone picks it up??," everyone said. Well, of course, when I had checked my phone for messages, the battery was very low..... so I turned it off while I was at lunch!!!!! It still has not turned up, so I called my provider and transferred my service to Alison's old phone. I had to reenter all my contacts, as well as erase 2 years of hers. But the worst part was the 162 photos she had on her phone, most of which had been taken in the dark at every bar in Kansas City. This had to be done one at a time, which was a real pain.... but mission accomplished. Alison, if you are listening, I did save several of the people I recognized......

To make the cell phone cozy in my possession I made a cover for it which is nearly done. Do you think it looks like a knitted sausage?