Lots of stuff...

My shawl has about 1/8 of the border left. Here's Jeffy laying on the "fancy blanket" he thinks Mom is making for him:

I can't wait until it's done! It's knit night tonight, so the knitting may be finished tonight. I bought some foam interlocking floor mats to use to block it on at Target.

Paulette and I went to a meeting in Madison on Friday. After we were done, we took a little trip to Verona to The Sow's Ear yarn shop. Of course, we both bought yarn we really don't need:

This is Misti Alpaca handpaint fingering weight. It is destined to become gloves for me.

This is Misti Alpaca handpaint laceweight, to be used for another shawl.

Paulette and I worked all day on Labor Day at the Winnebago County Labor Council's annual picnic. It was nutso busy. We had to keep going to the store to get more food. My feet still hurt. Here are some pictures from the picnic:

On the left is our friend Jessica King, who's running for Wisconsin State Senate in the 18th District, who helped us serve food for a fair part of the day. On the right is AFSCME Local 579's Vice President, Karen Reiter. (Paulette is President of AFSCME Local 579 and I am secretary).

This is our friend, Gordon Hintz, who is the Wisconsin 54th Assembly District Representative talking to the picnic attendees.

Two of the "Chefs of the day" were Larry Lautenschlager and Tom Manske of AFSCME Local 48.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you may remember that Larry was the subject of "Weinergate" in the Paulette and Sara household. See my post from September 3, 2007. And get your mind out of the gutter.

Yesterday I received the Outstanding Performance Award at work in front of the beginning of the school year faculty/staff assembly. Hmm, now I just have to figure out where to spend the $500 that comes with the plaque. Can you say, yarn store?

Progression

Here's the halfway point on my shawl:

Report on Stitches Midwest

The day dawned really early on Saturday (Crazy Aunt Purl calls it the "buttcrack of dawn")--Paulette and I were up at 4:30AM. We met Cheryl, Paulette's sister in Fond du Lac. Because of the early arising, we needed coffee, so a stop at the Fond du Lac Starbucks was in order. After much driving, Paulette, Cheryl and I arrived at Stitches Midwest in Schaumburg, IL. We got there right when the Marketplace opened-which was our LYS (for those of you who don't speak Ravelry language, that means local yarn store) of the day. I had never been there before--holy cow, what a lot of stuff in one place! It was like a big yarn store exploded there. I was in yarny heaven.

Here's the yarn I bought:

This is Qiviuk, from Windy Valley Muskox in Alaska. I went with this, which is a blend that includes qiviut, because it was a lot less expensive than pure qiviut. It is just as soft and lightweight as the qiviut.

I also found some sock yarn:

Like I don't have enough sock yarn in my stash. This is Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock, in the Grimm's Willow Wren colorway. I love the yarn colorway name.

And lastly, for the yarn anyhow, we have:

This is beautiful 50% wool, 50% silk DK yarn that the picture does no justice at all to. It is gorgeous. It is from Brooks Farm in Texas.

I also bought some other things there:

This is a knitting needle bracelet!

I found a shawl pin:

And the same booth where I bought the knitting needle bracelet had these buttons:

All in all, a good day's shopping, don't you think?

Progress report

I'm still knitting on my shawl. I am almost halfway through the border, which means I am almost halfway done with the knitting! Woo hoo. Folks have asked me what I will knit when I am done with it, since I have been knitting on this shawl since May 2. I think I may knit some socks--pretty much anything will go faster than this!

On Wednesday, we had about 15 people at knit night--We took over half of the Starbucks store. It was so cool.

Tomorrow Paulette, her sister Cheryl and I are going to Schaumburg, IL to Stitches Midwest. My personal goal is to go to the Marketplace there, because one can never have enough yarn, can they?

Will give you all a full report soon.....

Full moon fever

There is a full moon tonight and things were already getting weird during the day. First, Paulette and I went to Madison ( a city that is permanently in full moon fever) for a meeting. People were driving weirder than normal.

When we got back, we went to Starbucks for mochas. While I was trying to knit, there was a guy showing two older women a South Park video on his laptop and they were really yukking it up about it. While we were waiting for our mochas, a guy came into Starbucks in business attire, carrying something in his hand and went into the restroom. After much time in there, he emerged dressed in more casual clothing. Not really that big of a deal. Then, he went out to his car and proceeded to take his shirt off and stand on the grassy strip between the curb and street and spray something from a can over all over himself for at least 5-10 minutes, scrubbing it into his face and really spraying his head well. It was weird. Some girls came into Starbucks and made a comment about it as well. He then got back into his convertible and drove away.

Shoe shoppin' and other stuff

I have been shoe shopping this summer:

All three of the above pairs are from Macy's in Appleton. The personal shopper, who now no longer works there because they eliminated her position (and she was really good at her job, too), helped me find the two brown pairs to go with a skirt. I liked the brown ones so much, I went back and got them in black.

These are from DSW in Appleton. They are sort of a bronze color.

Of course, none of these shoes are appropriate for hiking, which is what Paulette and I did on Saturday, after stopping at DSW.

Here's a view of Lake Winnebago from High Cliff State Park:

On Sunday, we went to help my sister celebrate her birthday. Here she is wearing my birthday tiara:

I also did manage to fit a little knitting in there. I now have about twice as much done as in the previous picture. 4 more repeats on the border and I am 1/4 of the way done. Woo hoo!

The pink blob evolves!

The pink blob, AKA my shawl, is moving along. I started the border the other day.




I know I said I was going to start my green tank top in August, but I've gotta see how this turns out first! So far, so good.

In today's New York Times online, there is an audio slide show of the fashionableness (is that even a word?) of scarves. Here's a link to the story:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/08/01/fashion/20080803_street/index.html#

Huh, who knew? We're not just knitting scarves, we're creating FASHION!!