Time to make my own sweaters

So I had the day off on Friday, and boy do I need some new clothes! I have recently gone through my closet and realized that it was time for a shopping spree, baby! I got up early, got the kids on the bus and headed out for a quick run - trying to keep to my training schedule for that big 13 mile run that's (AAAHHH!) only two weeks away now. I then showered and zoomed downtown for a quick trip to Church Street. I had to chaperone a Girl Scout trip to go horseback riding in the afternoon, so sadly - my shopping spree was more rushed than I would have liked... I only managed to hit about 3-4 shops but I did have a bit of luck!

One thing I noticed - I didn't see ANY good sweaters in any of the shops! I mean, yes, they had sweaters - but nothing hip, nothing cool, nothing... unique! Nothing. Nada. Zip.

Some years I do find a number of great sweaters in the stores. And I don't mind buying a few, because I wear them all the time, and I don't have time to knit all of my own... with all of the other knitting for the shop that I do. But this year, I may indeed be doing a lot more knitting for myself. Of course I already have several sweater samples in the shop that fit me perfectly, and that I love to wear... but I'm now thinking that I may need to make a couple that can reside in my own closet... and not on the wall of the shop.

One of our customers from Stowe came in on Saturday and tried on our sample of the G'day Cardigan, knit with Berroco Geode yarn (pattern is in Berroco Book #276 Geode & Jasper.) We had the sweater on a mannequin, and (my bad) I had not tried it on yet. She was worried that it wouldn't fit her... she thought she'd be a medium and our sample is a small. BUT it fit her perfectly, and Kalen and I couldn't get over how awesome it looked on her. Even with the horizontal striping, she looked so trim in that sweater. There is a great high ribbing on that sweater that makes your waist look amazing... and the stitch detail on the body and the arms is so cool. It's really a beautiful sweater. We were pretty busy last week and this past Saturday - it was the Street Rod Nationals just up the road at the Champlain Valley Expo. That always brings in a lot of business - a lot of the women said they sit around and knit while their husbands stand around and talk about cars. We had one customer who was in the shop for several hours. She had walked over from the Expo and spent a lot of time browsing and shopping. She ended up with about 6 projects worth of yarn and she walked back to the Expo with 3 overflowing reusable Kyarns bags. One of the projects was yarn to make the Rocketry Sweater and Baby Blanket. I had just finished my Rocketry Baby Blanket on Friday night, so it was in the shop with the sweater, and got a lot of attention! Because this woman had already picked out 5 other projects... she wasn't keen to spend $120 on this set. I suggested that she knit the sweater and blanket out of Berroco Comfort yarn. She bought 7 balls - so for $40 she has a really nice substitution! She was thrilled. We were even able to match the colors pretty closely.

By the way, look how nicely the back side of my blanket turned out! So glad I picked up and knit each square as opposed to seaming them all together at the end.We also sold a bunch of the Ozark Handspun that arrived on Thursday. Pretty good for ordering it on Monday! (It will be online tomorrow I hope!) I made a cute hat on Thursday night and now I have made a funky scarf and I'm almost finished another neat scarf. It's a really different yarn - we all LOVE it. If I can just finish these smaller projects I could get started on a sweater for myself!

Here's a shot of the horseback riding from Friday. The weather was perfect and everyone had fun. I am actually sort of terrified of horses. I really only volunteered to chaperone because I think (and now it's confirmed) that Helen is allergic to horses. I wanted to go in case she had breathing difficulties. I "pretended" I was not scared, because it was Helen and Sophie's first time riding horses. And I didn't want them to pick up on my fear and not try it. So I managed to keep a smile on my face the whole time, even though my horse (the biggest one - how did that happen?) got spooked part of the way through the ride and bucked a little (yes, saw my entire life in that flash of a minute!) Oh yeah, did I mention that I am ALSO allergic to horses? Apparently more allergic than I realized. I started sneezing non-stop halfway through the trail ride and then I was totally stuffed up until the next day. Ick.

The things we do for our kids! But I look pretty good up there on Bailey, don't I?