a little lazy

So at this point in the trip, I got lazy and didn't take pictures of the rest of my yarn. I'll get pictures this afternoon and tonight at sit and knit. Expect an update later.

moving on...

After Brown Sheep, we hit the interstate and drove through Wyoming on our way to Ft. Collins, CO. First stop after the hotel was Lambspun of Colorado. This place was stinking hard to find. There are no signs for Lambspun although there are signs for the restaurant attached to it.


I got three hanks of Mango Moon sari silk for Unbiased (or maybe something else that I haven't figured out yet)...


...six ounces of what looks like a sport or fingering weight 100% alpaca that they dyed at the store. This picture doesn't do it justice. I had kind of wanted all this yarn wound from the cone into one ball, but as the guy was winding it, the ball went flying off the winder so I ended up with two instead. This stuff had better spit splice.


...some fiber for Erin to play with. I couldn't resist. It was just such a pretty teal and I'd promised myself that I wouldn't take up spinning on this trip, so I had to further someone else's fiber addiction.


And that was all I got from them the first day....did I say first? Yes, because Mom and I went back there the next day. More on that in the next post.

We also stopped at The Indigo Thread.


And I got this....

No idea what I'll use the brown alpaca for, but the burgundy Lamb's Pride superwash is for the Newsboy cap out of SnBN.

We met my cousin Mark and his son Kyle for dinner, then he took us up to Horseshoe Reservoir behind his house as the sun was setting.

See how shiny my face is? That's sweat. The whole time we were traveling, temperatures were between 98 and 107 with heat indices even higher. Blah!

More next!

more of the SEXpedition

Saturday we stopped by String of Purls so Mom could pick up a few things, then we wound the yarn we'd bought in Des Moines. Then Sunday after church, we took off for Grand Island. No yarn shops there, we only stopped to make the drive to Scottsbluff a little easier/shorter. Spent the night in the room knitting and winding the lace weight alpaca from my fabulous SP, Nederlass.

Monday we were back on the road by 8:30 for Scottsbluff. Along the way we saw Chimney Rock, but didn't stop.


We tried to stop in Gering, a suburb of Scottsbluff, to go to Threadbear's, but we only found an empty field at the address. Mom whipped into a coffee shop and we got some smoothies (banana split, yum!) to help curb the yarn cravings we were having by this point. The workers there told us that Threadbear's had been out of business for the last 3 years or so. So much for the internet being up to date.

Once again, we spent the night knitting (along with a quick stop at Joann's for my mom to get some eyelash yarn to top a sophie bag for a friend).

Tuesday dawned bright with excitement because today was THE DAY!!! The day we would go to Brown Sheep!!!!!!


We turned into what looked like a private farm and saw this.


Not too terribly exciting. We're looking at each other wondering if there really was a yarn shop attached to what looked like some very large machine sheds. Well, we boldly marched up to the office door, went in and saw this.




Everything was mill ends and seconds, but it was all beautiful. They sell everything in the store by the pound. Solids are $11/pound and handpaints are $24/pound. I walked out with...

...some cotton fleece for the person I'm SP for...


...three HUGE balls of Lamb's Pride worsted in this lovely purple...


...ten skeins of this shocking pink Lamb's Pride worsted...


...three hanks of Handpaint Originals in Mountain Meadow...


...and four skeins of Burly Spun handpaint. This was actually a batch that was a mistake. They were trying to make the colorway of Strawberry Fields, but somehow the green didn't take or something. They called this new one Strawberry Swirl, and the lady told me that they haven't been able to duplicate it now matter how they try. These were the last four skeins so I took all of them. No clue what I'm going to do with them, but for $24/pound, I couldn't just leave them there!


All of that was only $140 total. Not too shabby. More to come in the next installment.

yarn vacation day 1 - Friday

Mom and I started off our first vacation day with coffee and a cinnamon roll at a local coffee shop. After packing the car, we headed south to Fort Dodge and Wild Abandonment. Fairly new shop that's only been open about 6 months so the selection is kind of limited. I returned the 3 extra balls of ribbon yarn from my ribbon x-back and got some Cascade 220 and Crystal Palace Squiggle to make a sophie bag as a birthday present for a friend. Don't have a pic of that yet, I'll do that tonight at sit and knit.

From there we headed out to West Des Moines and had our first headache of the trip. I-235 is in the middle of some major construction so the exit we had to take was blocked, as were the next two exits after it. Lovely. Through some creative driving and a very helpful roadmap that I'd forgotten I had in my car, we made it to Creative Corner and Donna's in Valley Junction. Here's the haul from that. They just happened to be having a sidewalk sale, so I got the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran for $5/ball. Planning on an Irish Hiking Scarf for my dad as a Christmas present.


After dinner at Perkins, we headed back to Omaha for the night and so I could make it to the midnight release of HBP in full uniform.

So everyone can see how short the skirt actually is.

And with the robe that Mom helped me finish.

And knitting in public while I wait for midnight and try not to pass out from all the wool I'm wearing. That's the beginnings of my PoA Gryffindor scarf for the movie release of GoF in November.


I'll post more next. Just don't want these entries getting too long.

I'm really back!

I'm really back in Omaha now and I'll have pics from my vacation up either later tonight or tomorrow. Gotta go chase down the dog and unpack!

I'm back!!....sort of

Typing from my parents' house right now. I am one whipped pup. Didn't think I'd ever get too much of yarn, but I'm about at the breaking point. Mom and I actually cut out 3 stores in Kansas, there was one in Nebraska that had been out of business for 3 years, and one in Fort Collins that was closed for the month of July.

I'll post pictures of the trip, the midnight HP release party, and all my yarn when I'm back in Omaha next Wednesday or Thursday. I'm going to sleep as soon as I can clear my bed of all the yarn. Oy!

vacay here I come!!

I'm home from my last night of work before taking off for my 2 weeks of vacation that is going to include some MAJOR stash enhancement. Twenty plus yarn stores in six days baby! Including Brown Sheep Company. Might have to pick up something for the person I'm SP for to give her a little hint of who I am.

So what am I doing leading up to this expedition? Not knitting. I'm going to be sewing frantically today to finish the robes for my HP uniform. I've got all the pieces cut out (thank goodness for large kitchen floors), just need to mark them and put them together. So I'll be sewing up until the point that I make a large mistake, which is bound to happen since I haven't slept since yesterday afternoon, then I'll haul myself off to bed.

Here's the schedule for my trip.
Thursday (tomorrow)- home to my parents
Friday - Ft. Dodge, West Des Moines, Omaha (HP book release party)
Saturday - Omaha (read HBP and sleep)
Sunday - Omaha, then on to Grand Island (no yarn shops)
Monday - Scottsbluff (no yarn shops)
Tuesday - morning = Threadbear's (Gering) and Brown Sheep (Mitchell), then on to Ft. Collins, CO (hit two yarn shops before they close)
Wednesday - morning = Other two yarn shops, drive to Salina, KS
Thursday (and this is where it starts getting a little fuzzy) - Topeka (2 yarn shops on the way?)
Friday - drive through Lawrence, KS and hit Yarn Barn, Omaha for the night
Saturday - back to my parents

Then I've got another 6 days off after that to recover, and take pictures so I can provide everyone with lovely yarn porn. Squee!!

And in an internet yarn store rant....patternworks.com. I'd only heard nice things about them, so I ordered my HP scarf yarn on June 30th. It wasn't processed/shipped until July 5th. And I didn't get it until July 11th. Now I know that there was a holiday weekend in there, but there was no reason that they couldn't have shipped it on Friday the first and I would have had it by the 8th. But it's here now and that's what matters.

I'll have pics of my first Booga bag up later today. Camera's downstairs and I'm feeling lazy. Guess that's it!

Surprise gifty from my SP!!

A special surprise from my Knitty SP today...a box full of goodies from Knitpicks!! Here it is!


That's SnBN, a lace scarf pattern inspired by Queen Elizabeth I, two balls of Wool of the Andes in Mulled Wine, a set of size 0000 sock DPNS, a skein of Alpaca Cloud in Mist, and a skein of Alpaca Shimmer in Happy Dance.

Here's a close-up of the Mist. It's gorgeous. White, baby blue, and a very light grey all blended together. Gorgeous.


And Happy Dance...very similar in color to my Stargazer Lily socks, but the colors are a little richer and not so bright.


Still no sign of my Patternworks order. Maybe tomorrow. This stuff should keep me occupied until then.

RIP my old key board

My keyboard (which wasn't that old...it was new last November) has met it's tragic demise at the hands of a cup of coffee. I guess this'll teach me to never have beverages at my computer, but especially not when I'm coming off of my 5th 12-hour night shift in a row and need to stay up for a meeting. My hand-eye coordination is severely lacking when I'm sleep-deprived.

In knitting news, I completed my first booga bag and the miles of i-cord. It's ready for felting as we speak. That'll happen today and I'll have picutres later. I was also bad at sit and knit last night. I couldn't help myself! The shop had just gotten in bunches and bunches of Noro and I saw about 6 colorways that I wanted another booga bag out of. I got the prettiest one. Plus the fall IK was out so I had to get that and there are about 6 patterns that I've fallen in love with in there (more stuff to get yarn for on my trip next week!). Plus another book that I can't remember the name of, but it's got Viking inspired designs. I'm such a sucker for cables.

Also, my yarn I ordered from patternworks.com for my HP scarf finally shipped on the 5th. I placed my order June 30th. What the heck! I'm hoping that it gets here today. I want to be able to get a good start on it before the book release party so I can KIP.

In sewing news, my mom helped me figure out how to modify the pattern I picked out for my HP robe. I'm not going to line the whole thing, just put facings in the sleeves, hood and front of the robe. It'll serve it's purpose. I'll probably cut that out today and maybe start sewing tonight, but definetely tomorrow.

Now I've got to go clean up the mess that the butterball of terror has made. She seems to think that any cardboard box on the floor is her's to destroy so the box my new keyboard came in is now in about 300 pieces

a bunch of stuff

First off, the ribbon x-back/hootchie mama top is done and I finally got a pic of it tonight at the sit and knit. Here it is.


Next is my Gryffindor student uniform. I finished sewing the skirt tonight and yikes!! is it short!! Or I should say that it's shorter than I thought it would be. That won't make much difference once I have the robe made too, but for the moment I'm not sure if I'll wear it by itself to the HBP release since it's so short. Here's the best in the mirror shot I got tonight. If anyone's good with Photoshop and could get rid of the camera and it's strap and maybe replace the backdrop, this could be a pretty cool picture with my hand glowing like that from the flash. What do ya think?


And finally...the obligatory puppy pictures.
Can't a girl destroy a chew toy in peace?


What are you lookin' at?