The weekend where progress was made and gifts were given

Well, I finally got around to filing my taxes this weekend. So, first, let me tell you, I have never ever had to pay taxes before. In fact, I always got a big ole honkin' refund. Last year, when you combined my federal and state refunds, I received almost $5,000! This year, I was stunned to find out not only would I not get that beautiful little refund, but I would be paying...more than $5,000! I'm still not sure how much it's going to be after penalties and all that. Obviously, from now on, I'll file on time. Because I always got a refund, and because I didn't expect much this year, I wasn't in any kind of hurry. I suspect the sting of penalties in addition to the pain of roughly $6K in taxes will get me out of the starting gate on time next year! You know how you always hear stories of people who have financial, or housing, or illness - related problems, and they post their problems online and help comes pouring in? Yeah, I'm not holding my breath!

So, what did I do when I discovered my entire savings would be wiped out to cover my taxes? I went shopping! Duh!! Some people go pub hopping, I go yarn hopping. I just opened up my traveling knitters sourcebook and started plugging addresses into my navigation system. I found Crazy for Ewe in the quaint little square of downtown Leonardtown, MD; where I picked up a wool, silk, cashmere blend of black yarn and a pattern to knit it in.

Next I found Ch'naca fiberworks in Prince Frederick, MD (more sock yarn purchased here!) and right next door to her was a nice little quilt shop where we gushed over what great people Carol Doak and Jinny Beyer are! I finished up my sulk-fest at Balducci's where I picked up a bottle of Kim Crawford (best Sauvignon Blanc out there right now, especially at this price!) and a crab and mango stuffed avocado, which I paired with Valhalla's 2005 Rheingold---a perfect combination! I was concerned the tropical notes in Kim Crawford would be too much with the tropical notes of the mango...but what is this? A food blog!? Moving on...

After wallowing in self-pity for the first half of the day, there was only one thing left to do...knit! So, I attacked the most recent square for the afghan and got that finished up.

I picked up the first sock several times and contemplated working on it, but I'm just not ready to tackle the gusset. The heel has turned nicely though, and the third iteration does look a lot better than the first two...due in part, no doubt to the fact that it's only ankle length. I just didn't have it in me to do a full calf-length sock for the third time.

But the redeeming factor of the weekend was the gift from the SigO. He went on a road trip with his daughter this weekend and stopped at Wool Gathering in Kennett Square, PA to try to find something to cheer me up. You gotta hand it to him. Nothing cheers a girl like cashmere!! So, even though I'm pretty down hearted about the taxes, I did manage to make progress on the never ending afghan and I did get a pretty awesome gift...so, the weekend wasn't a complete write-off!

Quilt Odyssey Weekend Continued

I didn't tell the story of the weekend very well in yesterday's blog since I was so eager to post all the gorgeous pictures of all the quilts I saw. So, let me try again today.

As usual, my SigO made the drive (two hours) so I could knit on the way. I worked on the infamous afghan, but didn't even get more than 1/4 of the way through a block. I'm doing a chevron block and for some odd reason it's really giving me fits. It's nothing but knit and purl, but I keep miscounting, which, of course, totally whacks out the pattern, so I have to keep tinking back a row.

Before we went to the Quilt Odyssey, we had to go find a yarn shop. I diligently researched the best one for us to visit in the area...you know, if I had been this diligent in college or my career, I'd probably be a multi-millionaire by now! There were about four shops in the general vicinity of Hershey, PA and I settled on The Colonial Yarn Shop primarily because they had Tofutsies sock yarn and I've been wanting to check that yarn out for a while now. I mean, how cool is it that there's yarn made from the shells of crabs and shrimps?

I left the store with one skein of tofutsies, one skein of Opal Feelings, two skeins of sock yarn the SigO picked out for himself and eight hanks of Kollage's Cornucopia in Brandy Colorway. More importantly, I met two really awesome knitters there who were both wearing the Zephyr Knits "Green Gables" top that they had knitted up using TyDye. We all decided the Cornucopia would look great knitted up in that same top...it really doesn't take much to convince me to buy more yarn.
After the yarn shop, we headed over to the Quilt Odyssey where we saw all the gorgeous quilts in yesterday's post. Usually, I would have then gone to Show and Tell with the rest of the quilters, but the SigO and I were celebrating our sixth anniversary. Six months that is! Obligatory "Enjoy it while you can" inserts here.

So, we had dinner at Alfred's Victorian where the atmosphere is wonderful and the food is ho hum. A tad disappointing, obviously, but we did have a nice bottle of Chianti which masked the yawn of the food prettty well.





And so, finally, Carol's class! Sunday morning I showed up in class a full two minutes before start time...that's shockingly early for me! But, after all, the instructions did say to show up early in order to learn the machines! Unfortunately, the instructions also said to pre-cut all your fabrics. So, I only got 50% of that one--OK, 10%. I guess two minutes before start time isn't really considered "early" to some people! But, Carol was very patient, not to mention an awesome teacher.

This is the quilt we were inspired to re-create in our own creative way. Since not only had I not pre-cut my fabrics, but I also needed to leave early; I didn't even get one full block finished. Right now, what I did get done is laid out neatly on my sewing table as are all the pre-cut pieces all nicely organized and ready to be sewn up. Just another victim of "startitis" that will undoubtedly sit patiently for several months before I pick it up again. Luckily, I've ordered Carol's DVD on how to paper piece, so when I finally do get back to this I'll have a virtual Carol to help guide me through the process again.

Here's Carol teaching us all how to paper piece, wasting the least amount of fabric and creating perfect points.

and here she is showing some of her gorgeous quilts. This one is called Mardi Gras and I think it was my favorite of the lot...although that was no easy trick picking only one favorite. I especially love the quilting she did that looks like fireworks coming out of the stars.

So, it was a great class and a great weekend. I met lots of wonderful ladies, as I always do at these things and learned some new tricks and found some new toys. Of course, I spent way too much money. Not least of which was spent on some incredible African Indigo's...more about those tomorrow!

Giddy

That's how I feel this morning. I was so thrilled to sign on and see three comments to my blog...all from readers of the Yarn Harlot, of course...and the Yarn Harlot herself was the first to post a comment!! I'm So Thrilled!! Yes, I know, she said it's a community. We read her blogs, she reads ours...still! Very thrilling to see three comments on my very first ever blog.

OK, enough gushing!

So, yesterday I said I only had one project on needles. And that's the truth...but that's because I've sort of let my sampler afghan fall by the wayside. This was my third project. I picked it up thinking I'd learn lots of new stitches and with all that knitting, I'd get plenty of practice and eventually a nice, even tension. Of course, the problem with that plan is the tension on the afghan is all over the place! And some of the errors in this thing are dramatically bad. We're not talking about "Hey, I'll bet you can't find my error" type thing. We're talking about "Good God! How many margaritas were you drinking while you were knitting this?!" type thing. This is where the knitters in my group say "Oh, it can't be that bad...you're just being overly critical". Which is when I whip out my nine (out of 20 *groan*) completed squares:

This was my first. Probably not a good choice for my first block. The tension is so tight it measures somewhere closer to 9" instead of 12. And whereas the bobbles are all supposed to be alternating, some of them line up quite nicely

The shell pattern for the second actually turned out well enough
and there aren't any dramatic errors...
I remember thinking I might just be catching on to
this knitting thing....

And then came the hearts! Doesn't it look great!
That's because you can't tell that it's almost big enough to be an afghan all by itself! All the blocking in the world won't bring this behemoth down to 12"

Still, not being one to give up easily, I pressed on. I had had good luck with yarn-overs in the shell pattern, so I attacked the alternating lace pattern and it turned out nice enough (I haven't blocked any of these yet, so, really, who knows?!)

And finally, I was ready to try my first cable pattern. This looks great! But then, of course, it ought to, considering how many times it got frogged, tinked and generally cursed at. Thank God for Patricia who finally frogged it back to the right spot and got me started on the right track.

So, time to tackle cables and yarn-overs, and that, as well as the Fancy Lozenge and Semi Woven Lattice patterns came out well...that's five in a row! Obviously, I really did have a solid grasp of this knitting thing now....

Yep...pride goeth before a fall alright! It's not surprising that this was my last block. But I've got it figured out: The trinity stitch can be made into a small pillow, the heart stitch can be made into a large pillow, and I think this could be made into a lovely skein of yarn! Which means that I don't have 9/20 blocks put together for this afghan. I have 6/20. Hardly a surprise that I've decided to set this aside for awhile.