Bertie Bott's, trip knitting and other uses for knitting tools!

We took advantage of a school break last week and some frequent flyer miles and headed to Florida for a few days of fun in the sun. After a quick stop in Orlando to visit Hogsmeade & Hogwarts, where we sampled Butter Beer, visited Olivander's Wand Shop and dined at the Three Broomsticks, we headed south to stay with some good friends in Miami. There, we hit South Beach, went out in the boat and sampled some of the freshest and most delicious seafood. Yum!

Side note: Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans are the perfect entertainment for kids! (Okay, and adults, too!) We took some to our friends in Miami and it was too funny. Sampling these jelly beans one by one, waiting to see if the flavor is good or awful, and then trying to figure out what the awful flavor was... hysterical. Thankfully I only got a few bad ones - soap and what tasted like lemon pledge and sap. Fortunately, the kids got all the terrible ones - vomit, earwax, dirt, etc. Fun fun!

I packed two knitting projects for the trip. One was a lace-weight project with Noro Sekku, and the other was a hat in the new Malabrigo Rasta. I'm not a big fan of lace-weight yarns, but since we had a 3 hour layover at JFK (yay, frequent flyer miles!!) I started that project first. I won't divulge the pattern here because you'll see it this Friday on "Free on Fridays". I can say that it was my first project with lace-weight yarn where I opted to use the Addi Turbo Lace Needles.

These needles were just fantastic to work with! The points are incredibly pointy (without hurting my fingers) and the needle surface is just grippy enough that the teeny-tiny-skinny yarn did not slip. I will go so far as to say I enjoyed knitting with this yarn - and that's a complete turnaround for me. It just shows you how important the right tools are. Here's a preview of the scarf, straight from South Beach. (That's Marc teaching Helen how to boogie board in the background.) It's almost finished, too. Just a few more rows to go and you'll see it on Friday.

My Rasta and Brittany double pointed needles saw no action. They were just along for the ride. I did learn that Brittany dpns are versatile tools though, and can be used for non-knitting related activities! Our flight from Miami to JFK was delayed, so we were put on another plane that should have given us plenty of time to make our connection to Burlington. However, things did not go according to plan, and we ended up sprinting what felt like 2 miles to our connecting gate, running past people on the moving walkways, screaming "On your left!". We arrived just seconds before they closed the door to our plane.

When we got into our seats on the minuscule plane, it was 8pm, and we had not eaten since 2:30pm. (Bad planning mom, I know!) I had purchased some of those (super healthy!) Cinnabons in the airport, but had forgotten silverware. Those things are certainly not finger foods, but at this point, we were starving. Those small planes don't even have silverware, and so I searched my backpack to see what I had that could possibly assist us in eating the messiest meal possible.

Thankfully, my Brittany size 13 double pointed needles did the trick! I used one as a knife to cut the Cinnabons into small pieces. Sophie and Helen each used one as a fork, and Marc used 2 as chop sticks. Our tummies were satisfied, and the needles received a good cleaning when we arrived home, and they're good as new. Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do!

Last minute prep of the goods

Well today was certainly good weather for knitting! And it's a good thing, because I had a lot of seaming to do. This Tuesday, Suzie and I are taking the kids to deliver the goods from our after school charity projects, which include preemie hats and three blankets. We'll take pictures on our field trip, but I had to share a cute photo of a very excited Sophie. Tonight I washed everything so that it was perfectly clean for the delivery and Sophie helped me arrange the hats in what else... a Tiffany box! Can you believe we have exactly 50? WOW. Great job girls. I'm so proud of all of them.

Thanks to Berroco and Plymouth for their donations of Comfort DK and Dreambaby DK, and to Accessories Unlimited for their donation of Brittany double pointed needles. We still have yarn left, so we will continue to use it for projects like this in the future.

And totally off topic, here's a shot of my newest garden resident. I didn't realize he'd moved in when went to pick some rhubarb the other day. So he was greeted with a very loud and high pitched scream. Sorry big guy. I'm sorry if I didn't seem happy to meet you. But I don't like surprises!

Falls yarns are pouring in

I can't believe it's been a week since I posted. We've had a very busy week here. Lots of rain, lots of customers, lots of new yarns! I'll try to space out the info so I don't overload you, but let's just say we have many new things on the shelves here at the shop. We also have a number of new samples that have been completed, including the Loppem cardigan... this is a top seller, so come in and see it in person!

We all know it's going to be expensive heating our homes this fall and winter. I am already thinking that I'm going to pile more blankets on each bed so I can turn the heat back several degrees at night. Afghan knitting is going to be big this fall, and so I've already started knitting an afghan out of one of the new Manos fall pattern books. It is due to arrive here sometime next week, but I was fortunate enough to get a pre-copy of the pattern. It's a simple pattern - 12 big squares, 12 different colors. I just completed square one last night.

I would have completed it earlier, but several felines (well, really just one - I KNOW it was Maisy) disturbed my knitting the other day and lost me a good bit of knitting time. I was out running a quick errand and left my knitting, and Brittany DP needles all zipped up nicely in a gallon size freezer bag. I came home 20 minutes later to find my bag had clearly been disturbed. Not only was the bag open (I had securely "zipped" it) but there were many chew marks on the bag, and on the Brittany needles inside the bag. And the bag looked sort of empty. Like it didn't have quite the same amount of - oh I don't know - YARN in it as before. I did a quick check of the premises and found about 70 grams of Manos on the front entry rug. Tangled is putting it nicely. It took about an hour to salvage it.

Another reason I was slow on this square? My terrible habit of skimming patterns. This was a pre-copy, so there was no picture. People - I'm really visual. I do much better with pictures. So no picture, and I skimmed the pattern. I thought I knew what I was doing, and I knit most of the square before I realized there was a row of YO-K2tog back on row 8. I was already on row 40 or so. So I had to frog much of my work, but the square is done now, and I am sure the next one will fly by. It's going to be really nice, one completed and blocked!

Today we got in an amazing yarn! Peruvian tweed from Joseph Geller. We are so excited about this one. It's got 600 yards and it's so beautiful. It's only $27! You just have to touch this one...