I'm back!

got back in town Saturday night but have been insanely busy trying to unpack, clean, wash clothes, visit the various sickly relatives, etc...

photos are coming soon, but in the meantime here's one we took while driving across the entire state of Wyoming



no, this is not a photochop, it really says population 10. we actually saw two people as we were driving through, so I guess we saw 20% of the town's residents?

heading to the frozen north country

Ok so maybe it's not actually frozen, but in the 30s at night? That's pretty darned close to this Southern Belle!

I'm leaving tomorrow morning to fly to Montana for a week for my baby brother's wedding! We'll actually be spending two nights in Deadwood, SD before heading over to Cooke City, MT.

How geeky/cool is it that my husband and I are going to be watching the show Deadwood, while we're in the actual town of Deadwood? Though I admit the real reason I watch the show is I have a bit of a crush on the actor who plays Sherrif Seth Bullock *grin*

We're also going to be visiting Mount Rushmore while we're in SD, and Cooke City is about 3 miles from Yellowstone so we'll be spending quite a bit of time there as well. I will be taking tons of photos to post to the blog so if there are any special requests for something you'd like to see, let me know!

rave review for an eBay shop

If you haven't already, get yourself over to ColourmartUK on ebay and purchase one of their sample packs -- click here for the sample pack auction listing

for $1 they will ship you a minimum of 10 sample skeins of each of their yarn weights, either all cashmere or a cashmere blend (I got one that was 50/50 cashmere and merino, and 10 that were cashmere).

I don't know if I got lucky (they emailed to apologize that mine took so long to ship, they had a big sale and his assistant was on holiday) or if it's the norm, but in addition to my samples I also got a 250yrd/50g ball of fingering weight cashmere, 3 ply of black, grey, and khaki singles that Stephen of course promptly claimed would make a 'boggan' for him.

I was trying to get the large hank into a more managable skein to get the actual yardage and dropped it, so I now have half of it on my swift and half in a big tangled mess, but this is the softest stuff ever so I don't really mind all the unknotting since I get to fondle it more ;)

I haven't decided if I'm going to knit with it as-is, or ply it back on itself to get a little bit thicker weight to make him a hat with....

pea pod baby set

I finally snagged some sunlight and took a few photos


the entire set


the hat


seed stitch booties


slightly blurry close-up of the lace pattern

I just realized I didn't get a photo of just the sweater, I'll try to get one before I pack these up for the baby shower this weekend

wow

Just a quick update - things have been insanely hectic around our house, my mother-in-law has been in ICU for the last 3 weeks so most of our free time is spent shuttling back and forth to make the visiting hours. (I've posted briefly about it over at my livejournal at http://artemis9976.livejournal.com)

There has been quite a bit of knitting late at night, the baby gift set is complete and should be photographed this weekend when I'm actually outside the office or hospital while the sun is up. I've knocked out a few "warshrags" too, mostly for the baby gift but one Mason-Dixon ballband just for fun

I got some soysilk roving, SWT Bamboo and Berroco Cotton Twist for myself at Knit Nouveau last weekend. The cotton twist is well underway to becoming Wendy B's Dream Swatch (available at http://www.thegarterbelt.com in their complementaries section), the Bamboo is destined to become a mini Clapotis (ala KPixie's modifications), and I'm not sure what weight the soysilk will become, but it's an absolutely gorgeous mix of blues and greens, reminds me of the caribbean ocean and drinks made with blue curacao (delivered by cabana boys even!)

I'm not sure I even have readers these days, so give me a shout out in the comments if you stop by!