How I Spent My Yarn Store Money**

Here are the goodies I bought at the Stitches East Marketplace last weekend.

Salsa, a mohair/wool blend, from Dancing Leaf Farm, located in Maryland. This yarn just found me when we stopped at the booth. In person, it's a gorgeous variegation of blues, greens, and light purples. It is amazingly soft, and though I originally bought it to use with some wool boucle that I have, to make a shawl, I've changed my mind about twenty times since then, so who knows what it will become ...

Next, I bought a kit to make this sweater, which is a slip stitch pattern. The display model, done in blacks and grays, was really beautiful, and the kit even included the pewter buttons.

The yarn in my kit is navy blue, medium blue, and light blue. The yarn is an alpaca/merino blend, and though I'm sure it's plenty warm, it's nice and light to the touch. It's all from SweaterKits, in Canada, and if I had a lot more money, there were about three other kits that really appealed to me. This one won out over the others for the amount I had to spend!

We had stopped at the Cabin Fever booth to look at some really cool handmade pins they had, depicting sheep, cats, and dogs. I am a pin whore, so I had to look at every one of them. I decided that I would think about whether or not I really wanted one, and go back if I did. Which was kind of stupid, because, duh, of course I wanted one! So I headed back to the booth and came home with this: While I was checking out, I noticed the woman who was helping me had on a really great red cardigan sweater, with cables on the back as well as on the front. I asked her where she had gotten the pattern, and she said it was one that her sister had written, and they had for sale. So I also bought the pattern:
This will be a challenge for me, since I've never knit something in one piece, but hopefully whenever I start it, I won't be too overwhelmed.

(SweaterKits and Cabin Fever are both from Canada. I tell you, the only thing that could have made it a trifecta was if they had a booth for Tim Horton's Donuts! But I digress.)

Our second to last stop was the sale bin at the Yarn Lady booth. I poked around a bit, and found this Sir Galli yarn.

It was really a bargain - 100% silk, and I got 5 balls of yarn for $19.00! No, I don't have a specific project in mind, but it was pretty and the price was right, so it now lives with my other knitting supplies in Philadelphia.

The Yarn Lady is in Laguna Hills, California, which is also where my sister Nancy lives. Apparently it's right near the Trader Joe's. So the next time we take a trip west, I can visit the yarn store while Nancy visits Trader Joe's! It's win-win for everyone involved.

The last thing I bought was a set of blocking wires. I have recently decided that I would like to have a set, and they were reasonably priced, so I was a happy camper.

The Gift That Cannot Be Named

I realize I haven't mentioned the birthday gift I'm knitting for Tim lately, so let me tell you that it is/was coming along nicely. Until the other day, when I was nearly finished with one of the color repeats - I needed 6 more rows worth of one color - and I ran out of yarn! Did I mention I only needed 6 rows worth? Fortunately, I called the place where I had ordered the yarn, and not only did they still have that color, they also still had the same dye lot. As soon as it arrives, I'll carry on with the project, and I think I still have a chance to get it all knitted by this coming Saturday. If not, he's getting what is done so far, and then I'll finish by the end of Thanksgiving weekend, if not sooner.

Six rows. Honestly.

**Yarn Store Money = the money I have made when I've helped out at Rosie's. I've been keeping it separate, and used some at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival in May, and most of the rest at Stitches. It's like found money to me!