Stitches South, Rock Show, New Yarn Shops

This post has been written in my head for weeks. Unfortunately, taking the time and energy to physically write this post has been lacking. Each week I add a little more to the mental post. Prime example, first came a business trip for an entire week, followed by Stitches South, then a minor crisis at work, a rough weekend with the boys, a real crisis at work, and then a rock show. There; now you know everything that happened over the past few weeks.

First; Stitches South! Need I say more? It was my first Stitches, first fiber festival, ever. It was awesome! Per Ravelry there have been some mixed reviews of Stitches South in general. I had a few expectations, a few goals, a list of shops, and a budget. At the first stop, my primary goal, I spent the bulk of my budget at Knitting Rose Yarns. DH is getting a totally awesome sweater with the custom order I placed with Lise. If you haven’t met Lise; you should, she is awesome. I think I could easily adopt her into the family. Next, I found some Romney wool at Highland Handmades. Naturally, my spinning wheel hasn't been humming much over the last few weeks. What little spinning has been the same old white BFL I’ve been spinning on for over a year. From there the next purchase was DK yarn at Webs followed by Kollage needles (size 1 square needles) and some HiyaHiya needles in size 000. Then DH and I made one last swing by Knitting Rose Yarns again for some sock yarn. (Who would have guessed I would pick up sock yarn?)

Next, since I had to travel for work, yarn shops must be on the list for hotel stays. I stayed in Boardman, OH and located the Flaming IceCube yarn shop just a few miles away from my hotel. What an interesting shop. There’s a vegan café as part of the LYS. Interesting combo but I wasn’t brave enough to try vegan food when the Italian restaurant came so highly recommended by co-workers. My souvenir yarn was some Malabrigo bulky yarn. I think a cowl is calling my name but darned if I can figure out which one.

Lastly, the rock show was in Memphis TN area. My Father-In-Law owns a rock shop and will vend at rock shows like the Memphis Mineral Fossil Jewelry Show. Since it was a weekend show and close enough to meet up with the Things; we went. DH drove up independently of the boys and me to help his Dad set up.  After I finished work, I picked the boys up and off we went towards Memphis. While we were at the show I was able to knit a few rows to the Amiga cardigan from Knitty.

My goal is to have a blog post later in the week or next week at the latest detailing all the knitting I have been doing lately. (FYI all pictures today are from my Stitches South Loot.)

Vacation

Last week the entire family spent the week in Florida. Of course Disney was the destination of choice. However, there was still a couple of spring training games for the St. Louis Cardinals. DH is an avid Cardinals fan so we drove the extra distance to Jupiter, FL for the last game of spring training. The boys LOVED the game although Thing 1 swears his parented lied! In his mind, he was going to get to play a baseball game instead of watch a baseball game. The game was an afternoon game so we went down the day before, stayed in a hotel overnight and went to the beach in the morning. Thing 2 ran from the water while Thing 1 wanted to go further into the water.  Silly boys.

While riding shotgun, naturally, a pair of socks were in my hand. The striped vanilla socks grew slowly as I assisted in navigation and watching for peace cars (police cars). The peace cars were not for DH but for the Things who both love to see the cars alongside the road and up close. As a result, the socks are finished with a 5" cuff and afterthought heels. The heels were finished during the week when we spent the few, very few hours in the condo. On the way home, I was able to cast on another pair of socks. Thing 1 answered the question of top down or toe up with a loud top down! Cast on early in the morning and taking roughly 2 highways most of the way home results in fast growth on a sock. By the time we made it home I had an 8" cuff and waste yarn placed for the afterhought heel.