where to begin?

I'm back. It takes me about a week, usually, to recover from these business trips. This one was compounded by the fact that Spanky took a job in Florida to help out a friend, and since I have to travel in another week and a half again, she took Stella to her mother's house, so I've been alone at home with just the cats for company. It has taken a bit of getting used to, rattling around in the apartment by myself. Spanky will be gone until the summertime. She's taken jobs away before, and it is hard, but you get used to it. But this time, I don't even have the sweet puppy to love on. So it's taken me a little extra time to recover, but I have, to the point where I can function normally again. It is just a little lonely.

First of all, I want to thank Pamela at Flint Knits for her Minneapolis yarn store recommendations in the comments to my last post. I did actually go to Depth of Field, because hampered by the lack of a car, that was the easiest one to get to. It was a lovely, lovely store. It is near the west bank campus of UMN, and between appointments I had some extra time and despite wearing heels, I walked over just to get a look around. It is big, for one thing. I liked the fact that the pattern books were laid out near the yarn that went with them. I also think they had a great selection of yarn. I came away with this:


I originally wanted to get this dark blue color, but they only had two skeins. I'm planning to make the Clementine Shawlette from IK with it, so I needed three. I really love this dark brown though (color 135, chestnut), and I think it will match a lot in my wardrobe, so I bought it. It is sooo soft. I really love everything I've tried by Blue Sky so far. I know I'm not supposed to be buying yarn but this was vacation yarn, and surely that doesn't count. Especially since it is for a specific project.

I also picked up these:


Actually, I didn't get the Paton's book from Minneapolis. That one I ordered in a fit after I saw yet someone else working on the Urban Aran sweater (I'm pretty sure it was this one... scroll down--it's beautiful.). I had wanted to get this booklet a long time ago, but I guess at the time, I thought I would never use it, or that I didn't have enough skill yet, so I never ordered it. Recently, I started to worry that it would go out of print and I wouldn't be able to find it later when I actually would use it, so I ordered it.

The other two books, I got at Depth of Field. The Whiskey book I had also been thinking about for a long time. I fell in love with this sweater:


(sorry for the glare--my bad photography rears its head again)
They had been using this sweater in the ads for Whiskey yarn for a while, and I kept falling in love with it every time. But the yarn stores here don't make a big deal over the pattern books. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but it is generally harder to find them around here. You have to ask where they are in the stores, and then the store may or may not have what you want. So when I just found it sitting there with all the yarn, I pounced. I would have bought all the yarn for that sweater too, but my suitcase was already busting at the seams. The other sweaters are really cool too. I am pretty sure that I like the one on the cover as well, but it is a little hard to tell without a clear shot of the front.

The Cleckheaton book I bought because it has some really good basic sweater patterns in it. These are two of my favorites, although I love them all:


All in all, it was a successful yarn-store-exploring trip. The next trip is to Frederick, MD, and I'm riding with someone from another company who is also working the conference, so I don't think we're going to have time to scope out yarn stores (she's not a knitter), but on the plus side, I will have 4 hrs in the car of knitting time!

I have so much more to talk about--the Harlot's trip (no, I'm not going to recap it again, but I did have some thoughts about her speech), my current knitting, books I got right before I left (long story), and future projects, but I am also going to try to post more this week since I DO have the time now after all. I also have some films to review (The Prestige and The Illusionist). Next up, I'm getting Devil's Playground, Secret Things, and just for fun, Must Love Dogs. YAY. I'm so glad to be back.