My Weekend Part 1 - Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet Festival

Saturday, Heather (Amaryllis Musings) and I went to the Knit & Crochet Festival.  We had a blast to say the least.

There was so much to look at, we didn't know where to start.  Like the engineers we are, we established a plan, go around the perimeter then the inside.

Thankfully I have my handy dandy booklet with me while I type this up, so I can tell you that booth 27 with those beautiful pieces is Stitch Your Art Out. (Okay to be honest I had set aside all of my paperwork for this so I could refer to it while writing, but I forgot it and Heather gave me the booth name because she was prepared haha)

My first purchase!!!  Its a beautiful cashmere blend with purples and pinks.  It is totally me!!  It is Ball and Skein yarn.  It is called Aurora.  It must be new because I couldn't find it on their website.  I got a pattern to go with this yarn too.  

Its a cowl, the Cream and Sugar Cowl, to be more specific.  I'll be jumping from beginner knitter to cables!!! Yikes!

Heather got a better picture of the cowl.  Not sure how she did it because there were loads of people at this booth.

Here is one of the skeins of sock yarn Heather bought:

It is from Claudia Hand Painted Yarns and it is a beautiful teal color.  Heather got some other colors too, you'll have go see them at her post.


Next up is my second purchase.

This is a gorgeous luxurious yarn.  It is the brand Hand Maiden Fine Yarn and the name of the yarn is Marrakesh.  It is 70% silk and 30% baby camel.  How cool is that?!  I got it because of this sweater that they had made in it.

I was told that even a beginner can make this sweater and that there is nothing complicated about it.  Plus, it only needed that one skein!


They had beautiful yarn, just look at all of the pretty colors they had!

Next up, was the booth for SpaceCadet Creations.  Their yarn was so pretty.

Look!  It sparkles!!!

I bought a skein of the sparkly yarn.  The yarn is called Lucina.  I bought the color called Pride.  Surprisingly it isn't shown in the pictures above.  I really wanted to go out of my normal color palette (Purples, pinks, purply pinks, etc).  I really do love color in general, but the color I bought I don't normally go for, but is just so PRETTY.

Its an orange-y color.  Again, its called Pride, but it could easily be called sunrise or sunset.  That's what it reminds me of.


My next, and final purchase was at Blue Heron Yarns.  I was very indecisive about this one.  I had already spent A LOT of money.  So, Heather and I went to lunch and I kept thinking about it over lunch.  I decided that I wanted a skein of their new 100% bamboo yarn.  It isn't even in Ravelry yet.


I narrowed my decision down to these two:

I decided to get this one:

The colors are just amazing!  Greens, purples, blues... It is lace weight and I have no idea what I want to do with it.


Another booth I really wanted to highlight was Robyn Chachula's booth (She earned bonus points in my book because when I looked her up I found out she is an engineer! woot)  Her crochet designs were amazing.  I would use and wear her what she creates.  She has plenty of trendy items.  I fell in love with her Sunflower Jumper.

I could see myself wearing this with a long sleeve t-shirt underneath, leggings, and boots.  I don't know if I'll ever take the time to make it, but I admired it for a long time.


I also picked up a card for one of her upcoming books that I'm pretty excited about. 

Heather and I had a really good time talking to her about what's going on in crochet, pesky things like joining and gauge (gauge scares me....A LOT), and the festival in general.


Eventually Heather and I made our way to a table to "assess the damage" of our purchases.

This was my haul and I'm in LOVE with all of it.  I got patterns to go with the green and purple skein and last night I found a pattern for my sparkly yarn (I'll show it to you some other time, this is already a miles long post).  The only one I have to keep searching for is my bamboo lace, upper right.

Heather's haul.

Heather, while she was arranging her yarn.

I tried to get a picture of us with the sign in the background...it didn't really work.

Good picture...but my glasses are crooked, so we tried again.

Some nice lady at the hotel took our picture for us.

Whew! This was a long post. I really had a lot of fun and will definitely do it again!

Check out Heather's post about the event here.

Sam <3

Missy's Bachlorette Weekend

This week has been a rough week.  Another round of chemo for my bf and it hits hard.  This post was supposed to go out on Monday, but here it is, better late than never.

This past weekend, a group of us went to a cabin for my sister's bachlorette weekend.  We had a really good time.

My sister, Missy, the bachlorette!

The Missys (Yes they are both Missy)

One of the bridesmaids bought a "Bachlorette Kit" and it had funny games in it all revolving around paper cut outs of male anatomy....lots of laughs, that's for sure.  It also had a sash and tiara for Missy to wear.

We had jello shots in mini champagne glasses...

Lots of music...

bad song choice?

The cabin we were staying it was really nice and it snowed so it was beautiful outside!

I thought the door latches (shown above) were the coolest thing.  They're kind of loud though.

You can see my blue crochet bag in front of the chair above.  I had a couple mornings sitting in front of the fire crocheting.  It was awesome!  My sister actually decided the next color choice in my ripple.

I look like I'm squinting here...

Missy, Julie, Kirsten

Jodie, Ashlee

Missy, Julie

Jodie, Missy

Ashlee, Missy

Top Row: Missy, Julie, Nora, Kirsten, Jodie
Bottom Row: Missy, Ashlee, and Me

Dinner was delicious and we had a really great weekend.  I tried to keep all the pictures clean, but if you look closely you can find some of the funny bachlorette items.  If you spot them, I hope instead of getting offended you laugh :-D

I actually have a FO, but I never got around to taking pictures of it, so I'll have to show it to you later.

Sam <3

FO Friday - Dishcloths, Water Bottle Cosy, Hot Drink Sleeve

Just as an fyi folks don't hit ctrl-z in blogger!  I use keyboard shortcuts ALL the time.  Ctrl-z is undo!  I simply wanted to undo a bad paste and it deleted the whole post!!!!  Also, while I'm venting about blogger, it saves at random times, so if you goof you can't go back to the last save like a normal document!  Here's what the post was supposed to be, let's see if I can do it all over again.

I finished these crochet dishcloths last week.  I think of them as a set.  Its crazy how fast I can make these compared to my knitted ones.

The blue one on the left was the first one.

Pattern:  Diamonds Washcloth
Yarn: Knit Picks Dishie in Azure
Hook: 5.00mm H

The next two dishcloths were inspired by the first.

I call it Vertical Ridges.  I think you can see the pattern a little better in this next photo.

Pattern: Vertical Ridges - I made it up, if some people want it I can be persuaded to write it up.
Yarn: Knit Picks Dishie in Aster
Hook: 5.00mm H

The final dishcloth, I call this one diagonal ridges.

Pattern: Diagonal Ridges, I made this one up too.
Yarn: Knit Picks Dishie in Conch
Hook: 5.00mm H

What do you think?  I like how they look together.

Some of the other small items I have been working on are a Hot Drink Sleeve,

and a Water Bottle Cosy

This is the first time I have done one of my water bottle cosies in two colors.  It was kind of a pain in the butt.

Whew! Post rewritten.  I hope I didn't forget anything that I had before.

Don't forget to check out other FOs over at Tami's Amis, Natural Suburbia, and Wisdom Begins in Wonder.

Sam :)

WIP Wednesday - New Dishcloth and My Ripple

I've started another knit dishcloth.

These are really good for practice.  This one is going a little slower than the first one.

And here is my ripple.  I've gotten a few more colors added since the last time you've seen it.

I'm trying to decide what color to do next.  I swear these decisions take me forever.

I think I'm going to make a hanging kitchen towel of of this yarn.

What are you working on?

Don't forget to check out everyone else's WIPs over at Tami's Amis.

Sam :-)