yarn hangover

Have you started Christmas knitting yet? I have :P


Pattern: your basic top down with a picot cuff and slipped stitch heel
Yarn: SweetGeorgia Tough Love Sock in col River
Needles: 2.25mm dpns
Notes: These are a Christmas gift for someone special but I'm not telling who. Pair #52.

For my birthday, hubby bought me tix to see Harry Connick Jr. The concert was Fri night.


They don't allow pictures inside the theatre so this is all you get. Harry was wonderful even with a huge walking cast on his right leg (something about ripping a calf muscle while exercising). Lucky for us, leg injuries don't impact the lungs or vocal cords. It did limit his movement on stage but he did manage to shake his booty enough to make me drool a little.

Today, I have a bit of yarn hangover. Yesterday, I filled hubby's SUV with 4 other crazee knitters (3 that I'd never met before), a bunch of food, and went on a yarn crawl called Yarn Harvest.

We started out at Black Sheep Yarns (where I work) to witness the MadTosh mosh pit. It was pretty hectic. I didn't buy anything but I think everyone else in my group did. We had a knitting newbie in our group - Meggin and we worked hard at corrupting her. She broke her "only buy yarn for a specific project" rule at the very first store. I'm so proud of her.

After BSY and struggling through some crazy road construction, we made it to Baaad Anna's. Didn't buy anything there. I was saving myself for our next stop - SweetGeorgia!!!!! I was not disappointed. She had racks and racks of yarn and spinning fibre drying in the main room. We headed up to the loft area to do our "real shopping".

I just happened to have a sock WIP in my purse and I asked Felicia to pose with it.


That's vintage SweetGeorgia yarn (in the framboises colour) that she dyed before her hiatus. The picture's blurry because I might've been a little excited to hold the camera steady.

Then we headed east and into Surrey. We took a little break for lunch at Semihamoo Park in White Rock. We decided to skip Penelope's and head to Knitopia. Their new shop in White Rock is teeny tiny so there's yarn stacked right to the ceiling.

Our last stop of the day was 88 Stitches. I was hoping to meet Judy Marples but she'd already left by the time we got there. She's the designer for the Dover Castle shawl which is one of the patterns in Shawl Wars. BTW, Gladys and I are still very much alive.

And this is what the back of the SUV looks like after a yarn crawl:


Hubby's SUV is a Toyota Highlander so that you can understand the scale of our purchases. Not all of it is mine. Just this:


From left to right: 3 skeins of SweetGeorgia; 5 skeins of Yarn Candy; a skein of Berroco Lustra; and a skein of West Coast Fibre Works (the perfect Yarn Harvest colour)

I also bought half a pound of West Coast Fibre Works BFL from Knitopia for spinning:

As we headed to the restaurant to meet all the other Yarn Harvesters for dinner, I realized that I wasn't that hungry. We'd been eating all day - pakoras and chocolate coconut bars (courtesy of Marina), chips & 3 layer dip (Meggin's contribution), and a super yummy chocolate banana bread (love you, Judy).

The dinner was super fun. All these knitters crammed into the private room and spilling out into the restaurant. A lot of us showed off our purchases. The yarn fumes were overwhelming at times. After dinner, the organizers held a draw for all the door prizes.


My number was drawn twice and I won a pattern book and a small notebook for keeping track of yarn/projects i.e. the hard copy version of Ravelry. My friend, Vicki won the grand prize (valued at $275) containing yarn, patterns, Namaste bag, and a gc to Signature Needle Arts.

After being on the road for more than 12 hours, I had just enough energy to drop off everyone and then head home for my bed. I slept for 10 hours straight.


Phoebe says, "The best cure for any hangover is a little catnap on my new cardboard lounger."