First off, it was an amazing weekend, filled with friends and hugs, fiber and patterns

food and fun

and general frivolity. I had a wonderful time and caught up with so many dear friends, saw wonderful things for the shop (some of which have already started to appear), and made some great contacts (personal and professional). The personal stuff is always chronicled over here, versus cluttering up this space.

I did make substantive progress on Amherst

and completed the back (shown above, but only halfway done). I have now started the first front

but that project is on hold. While at the show, I also played with a couple new sock yarns

that will be joining the ThreadBear family in the coming months. The minty goodness is Kollage Sock-A-Licious (superwash merino/silk/nylon) and the stripe is a new Regia (World Ball) in honor of the world cup. Yummy stuff!

I can’t wait to get this delivery of fun sock-weight yarn from Aslan Trends

that should be headed this way already, or very shortly. It’s a great value-priced yarn that’s kettle dyed in South America, and these new colors should be popular.

I have been knitting on another project in the past two days. We needed something made out of the Baby Marble that arrived last week

so I was quick to grab a pattern from one of our favorite designers (Diane Soucy at Knitting Pure & Simple) and hopped to it yesterday (Tuesday) and got this far by the afternoon

before having to cover the last part of the day at the shop. I worked on it a little more after getting home around 9 p.m. and got almost the entire body done

before turning in (or more accurately, falling asleep on the couch with it in my lap).

But Sunday and Monday, I was distracted by crochet. It was our monthly crochet-along for the hex blanket, so I had to work on some of my own while visiting with the group

and I added two new units to my piece. Edie is doing hers out of Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend and Cascade Venezia Worsted (both are merino/silk blends) and it’s coming along SMASHINGLY

I’m envious, also, of her color combinations. I love the wild colors in mine, but her sophisticated palette is attractive to me!

Over the weekend, I did embark on something that enticed me during the trade show. The good folks at Denise Interchangeable (you know them for their knitting needle sets, but they also feature an interchangeable CROCHET set, too! and yes, we stock them) showed me how to use their products to do something called Tunisian Crochet. Personally, when I did it over 25 years ago, we called it “afghan stitch” and I made several afghans using it (my mother still has one, in all of it’s harvesty-gold glory….shudder….), so it was easy to refresh my hands and get crankin’ on some examples for the shop.

Behold a Tunisian Crochet bag, made with under 100 yards of bulky-weight yarn and a big hook

They’re cute and quick projects that are featured in an upcoming class (being announced this evening, via newsletter) and take a short amount of time and a small amount of yarn and minimal skill (NO PRIOR CROCHET EXPERIENCED NEEDED) to complete. I think they’re stinkin’ cute

and would make a great project bag for something small like a pair of socks, mittens, or even a scarf. Or just a quick bag to grab on the way out the door.

DING! that’s my timer…..gotta run! BE WELL!

I did get that swatch done last week, as planned, and started the project. It’s a fun cardigan/vest project that is worked sideways

using Cascade Superwash 220 Quatro, in “Brown Bear”. It doesn’t look like much in the photo above, but it’s quite lovely fabric. I should have the body knitting completed today/tonight, so I’ll need two small shoulder seams done (yes, I’m that lame–I need someone else to do them) and then I can put on bands and the sleeve cap. Finished soon!

That means………..I can start TWO new projects!

I’ve been project shopping, over the past week or so…..looking for something wonderful to make with that delish tweed I showed last time around. I may have a winner in this

design from ChicKnits. Swatching will tell me more about combining the yarn and this pattern….we’ll see how it goes.

Also on deck is this design

from Dolce Handknits. I’ve got a nice shade of Cascade Soft Spun lined up for it, and again–swatching will be important. But I think the combo is a slam dunk.

Both are headed with me to the big twice-annual yarn shop trade show called TNNA. This version (in the summer, for the fall/winter seasons) is held in Columbus, OH, a city that I’ve grown to love over the past six/seven times I’ve attended. It’s a nice-sized city with great amenities and the show itself is always a good one, filled with interesting products, fun people, and amazing industry friends. It will be a great weekend and even better to get away for a little bit. It’s been awhile since I got out of Lansing…..a year, to be exact (TNNA last year). Best of all, there’s some other fun things on my agenda, above/beyond the show….should be fun!

But first, a quick catch-up on the “summer snows” we were still experiencing when we left town a couple days ago. Check out the accumulation of cottonwood, across the river from the house

I nearly took another photo at the shop, as there was a 2-3 inch deep “drift” of cottonwood in a corner of the parking lot at the shop. But I didn’t stop the car to do so–lazy me! Suffice to say we’ll ALL be happy when it stops flying through the air by the end of the month!

But back to the projects…….I swatched the night before leaving for Amherst

a great pattern from Dolce Handknits. It’s been a popular pattern in these parts, so we finally are getting a model made. I’m using a new yarn from Zitron (a German line that’s completely organic/eco-friendly yarns) that’s called Fundus (I wonder if the Germans know the translation into English). Despite that, it’s really pretty yarn, especially worked up into fabric

We’ll be carrying it in the fall, but I’m trying to get as many models made up as possible in advance of yarn arriving. There’s something pure and meditative about garter stitch–and I could use a little of that right now! Plus, it’s good to have non-thinking projects when we’re on the trade show floor or laughing with friends in the lobby after hours.

Another good project for the show floor is the Panel Jacket

a great design that’s made of several strips of……..garter stitch (imagine that!) Very good for walking the trade show floor as well, and small–this will be my project of choice, at least to start. Here’s what I got done in the car on the way down

There’s just a touch of shaping at the bottom, and then it’s just back and forth in a FANTASTIC yarn–Lana Grossa Royal Tweed. Royal Tweed is a delight….100% merino with great bumps of color (more than you see at the onset, as there’s great depth of color in the fabric), and it works up quickly (it’s technically a bulky at 14 sts/4″, but this pattern calls for it to be worked at 16 sts/4″). This could be one of those highly-addictive projects, so it may go rather quickly!

My in-the-car-on-the-way-down project was a Baby Surprise Jacket from Schoolhouse Press, using the new “ABCSJ” pattern that’s good for Adults, Babies, and Children, all in one well-laid-out, colorful, thoughtful pattern.

I’m using Shibui Worsted for my shop model

It’s a new-ish (and new to us) machine washable option from the good folks at Shibui that’s been sneaking in the door of late. The one thing about this project is that it looks like a big knitted jellyfish

until you do a little origami folding to make it look reasonable

I did bind off on Friday night, while watching “What Not To Wear” in the hotel lobby (the episode was about a hot mess from Texas with GREAT BIG 80s hair and a strange addiction to sparkle). Nothing like not interrupting your regular routine while on the road!

I brought along another project (several, but we won’t discuss them all just yet) to swatch and possibly start, too. It’s the Half Circle Cardigan from Shibui

that’s available in both a baby/child size and an adult size. This project will be an adult version, worked in the colourway “Pagoda”, a rich terra cotta.

that has subtle light and dark shades in every skein. YUM! Can’t wait to swatch for this darlin’.

Gotta run for now……….time to knock off for the night and get ready for another busy day on the trade show floor. Sunday is usually our first “buying day”, as we tend to kick alotta tires on Saturday and check out everything, hit the room for some plotting and planning that evening, and then do serious buying on Sunday and Monday. MORE SOON!