So I took a little vacation! Yay me!

I went to Dallas and stayed for a few days with my Grandmother. We did a lot of hanging out at the house with the dog and reading, napping, visiting and eating. Mmmm, root beer floats and good Mexican food. Can’t beat it!

She did ask me to teach her to knit so we went to a discount store and found a cheap-o learn to knit kit and off we went. She caught on VERY quickly and a day or two after I left, I got a phone call that she had finished her first scarf and was looking forward to the needles i was sending her so she could begin something new. :)

We went to a lovely little yarn shop tucked into downtown Dallas. It is in one of a little group of refurbished houses turn shops like a tiny hiccup amongst the huge office buildings. It’s called The Shabby Sheep and I absolutely LOVE it. I’ve got an LYS in Dallas now as well as Houston. Hee!

We picked up some yummy deep red alpaca yarn for her to make a hat and scarf from and she sent a skein of it home with me because she wants me to knit her a pair of Fetching but she wants me to alter them so that they’ve got individual fingers on them. I can totally do it.

She also gave me some yarn of my own choosing. (NOTE: I didn’t buy it or ask for it. It was true gift yarn and thus does NOT count in the Knit From Your Stash 2007. I’m just about a month in and still standing and tightly gripping my "Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card". Give it up for me!!! Yes!!!)

Claudia Handpaints in Ocean Depth & Purple Earth 

Colinette Jitterbug in Jay

See! Pretty new sock yarn! I’m going to have even more toasty toes!

I got a good amount of knitting done while I was there too. I started an Anemoi mitten and got this far:

Anemoi before I left Dallas

By last night, I had this:

Anemoi as of 01/29

I decided that in South Texas, we have no real pressing need for mittens, um, oh, say, EVER. (Imagine that! Now, close your mouth. You’re gathering flies in there.)

So it has become fingerles.. I’ve cast on the second one and suffice it to say, I will sing this pattern’s praises from the roof tops or at least the walkway of the second floor. You know, whichever I get to first. Heh!

I knitted some bags for my little cousins before I went and they turned out SUPER cute. Here’s a picture of one of them. (Close your eyes and imagine there are two. Because they were identical and I didn’t see any point in bothering y’all with two similar pictures. Thank me later. Really.)

Imagine two of these. Ok, now, you got it!

These little bags went over really well. So well that I came home with a request for another one. My Aunt Barb wants one. And when she was requesting that she managed to remind me that she really like slippers and she wears a US 8.5 shoe. Hmm. I think that was a pretty obvious fishing about for a pair of felted slippers. Seeing as I don’t have enough bulky wool in any one color for a full pair of adult slippers, methinks she’ll be getting a pair of slippers a la Joseph’s Technicolor Dreamcoat. Eventually that is. I’ve got a lot of plans laid out for stash knitting. I think I’ll be hitting the excel spreadsheet tomorrow to organize so I don’t forget any of my plans.

And with this, I’m off. That second Anemoi is calling my name and I dare not ignore it lest it become (a most unlikely) victim of second mitten syndrome.