On Tuesday I went up to Sebastopol with my mother to the thrift store The Legacy. This is a wonderfully unique thrift store where they only sell craft items, and it benefits the local senior center. My mom was after some sewing machines parts and I was after nothing in particular but wound up getting loads of knitting pattern pamphlets for under $10.
Two blocks away from The Legacy on the same street is a yarn store called Balls & Skeins. My mom dropped me off over there so I could spend some of my birthday money. Balls & Skeins is a nice little store, though there isn’t a huge selection, or rather there isn’t a huge variety of different brands – or specifically different to me brands. They did, however, have the new larger 400-yd skeins of Jitterbug, so I snapped up one of those and another skein of turquoise Cascade 220, which shall join the pile o’worsted for the upcoming hatapalooza.
I do seem to enjoy knitting hats in the hottest months of the year; go figure.
The yarn is on top of my pile of stuff from The Legacy, and the top pattern is a vintage(ish?) child’s pullover, very adorable. The yarn is my sole birthday yarn this year. A friend sent me a gift certificate to the Loopy Ewe, and I selected a skein of Skinny Bugga in the Goldenrod Crab Spider colorway, which is an awesomely weird yellow green mustard color; absolutely what I envisioned and have been wanting. I’d like to make a shawlette with it to wear with my gray jacket.
In the middle is the Jitterbug. I don’t know what I’ll make with that yet. The colorway is (I think) Ischia (?) and reminds me of chocolate mint. Last is the Cascade 220 in the extremely well named colorway 9455.
I’ve sort of got project ADD at the moment; I don’t have something I’m completely married to and have been jumping back and forth between projects, even picking up an old one from last year:
These are fingerless mitts I’m calling “King George Mitts” based on the name of the lace pattern (which I confess may actually be called “King Charles Brocade” and in one of my pattern books is simply titled “Lacy Diamonds”. However, King George has stuck).
This morning (Saturday) I went to Felicia’s local wedding shower and gave her my gift. I like attending wedding showers for the sole reason that I don’t have to tote a gift to the wedding. In fact, the last several weddings I’ve attended I went to the shower for this purpose and I have to recommend it! For Felicia I got her a 12-count muffin/cupcake tin, a cake decorating set and a set of scissors. She seemed pleased with it, and to my amusement when she unwrapped the scissors, the whole room full of ladies went “Oooooh!” so, see, I was right about everybody needing scissors! I personally probably have about ten pairs floating around the house and it’s simply… not… enough. 😉
Next week I don’t have much to do except continue to look for work and I may have lunch with Felicia and Jennifer, who was also at the shower. Hopefully I will also have a chance to meet up with Malvina to help her with a hair dyeing situation. I also need to work on Sarah’s birthday present, like, a lot. Sarah is coming up for the wedding and Malvina and I plan to take her out to lunch for her birthday which is actually next week.
Oh, incidentally, I am Felicia’s wedding dress storage facility! Thanks to the fact that I have an animal-free homestead, there is a big lacy dress hanging in a storage bag in my living room, and it actually kind of startles me every time I walk past because from the corner of my eye it’s like a person standing there. Heh.
Yep, those are my King George mitts, knit in Malabrigo sock (love. it.) over a period of something like a year. Oy vey, self! Once I cracked down and remembered what the eff I was doing, it only took about two evening in front of the TV to finish up the second mitt.
They feature a turned hem, the King Charles Brocade lace panel from the Harmony guides lace book, a thumb gusset and 1×1 ribbing on the thumb and finger openings. I was thinking of writing up a pattern for them, but they actually need some work because the panel isn’t quite centered and I had forgotten what I did in the length of time between mitt #1 and mitt #2, and frankly I’m pretty sick of them so I don’t think it’s going to happen.
