FO Friday -- Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner!

Oh guys, I'm so sorry.  I totally fell off the face of the earth this month, and I apologize.  I did have some pretty good reasons, though...

Right before Stitches West, we found out that I was pregnant.  Right after I got back, we had an ultrasound that showed things were probably okay.  A week later, we had another that showed things were probably not okay.  A few days after that, Mr. Right had an accident at work that landed him in the hospital with a severed Achilles tendon. He had surgery to repair it, and is home and recovering.  While all this was happening, we found out that things were definitely not okay with the pregnancy.  Last week, we had a miscarriage.  It's okay.  Without going into too much detail, we got some encouraging news and we're hopeful.  We're both okay, just really trying to climb out of the last month's stuff. 

Anyway, when last we spoke, I was holding a contest to share part of my Stitches bounty, two skeins of gorgeous Alpenglow yarn. 

Thanks so much for all the comments and entries!  Man, I love having giveaways.  I especially like typing the numbers into the Random Number Generator.  Here's what it kicked out this time...

A quick perusal of the comments reveals that comment #11 was left by Cathy at Cat's Tale, all the way in Melbourne, Australia!  Big congratulations to you, Cathy!  I'll be mailing it this weekend, though there's really no telling how long the trip from Colorado to Australia will take.  I'm curious to see!

Anyway, things are beginning to return to normal around here, so you can expect to see me popping up more regularly again.  With knitting, even!  The mind boggles.  Until then, have a lovely weekend and go check out FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday for lots more yarniness.

FO Friday -- Free Yarn Edition

Okay, so I'm kinda cheating.  I don't actually have an FO to share with you all today, but (But!) I don't think you'll mind...

So, Stitches West was awesome this year (as always), and my trip to California was a blast.  I got to hang out with some of my favorite people, shop at my favorite grocery store, and eat my favorite tacos.  It doesn't get much better than that.

On Thursday night, we got our times muddled for the market preview, and showed up about an hour before it closed.  Despite a brief panic attack, we were able to get nearly all of our shopping done before the market closed.  Apparently, we're just very efficient. 

On Saturday, we took a class called "Switch to Continental".  The instructor was quite a character and there was quite a lot of eye-rolling going on, but by the time we left, I could purl in continental style.  I'm hoping to switch back and forth between Continental and English between projects for the sake of good ergonomics.  Plus which, it just looks kinda cool.

You know what's crazy?  I completely forgot to pull my camera from my bag at any point while we were at Stitches.  Sorry about that.  I did remember to take pictures of our field trip to the San Francisco Zoo, though! 

 

Oh, and the other thing I remembered to do while I was there was to buy some gorgeous yarn for y'all:

This is Alpenglow Yarn Sockerino in the English Lavender colorway.  It's just a tiny bit more muted than it looks in this picture, and it is awesome!  It's made in the US from 100% organic merino, and you all should consider yourselves very lucky that I have such epic self control that I didn't squirrel it away for myself when I got home.  If you'd like it to go home with *you*, just leave a comment on this entry between now and let's say 8pm (US Mountain Time) on March 14.  I'll use the trusty ol' random number generator and announce the winner in next week's FO Friday post.  Fair enough?  Oh, and leave a way for me to contact you in case you're the Winner!  

While you're waiting for my big announcement, go check out all the awesome entries over at FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday.  Then go have a fantastic weekend!

Work In Progress Wednesday v.134

Hey guys!  I made it back from my California vacation/Stitches West trip just fine last week.  I had an amazing time as usual, and have been busy, busy, busy since I got home.  I didn't forget about you though, you'll have to come back on Friday for a trip recap and so you can enter to win the pretty, pretty yarn I bought for you.  It'll be worth the click, I promise.

For now, you'll have to settle for getting up to speed on the projects I've been working on lately.  I think I mentioned it, but a few weeks ago I brought my Peerie Flooers Mittens out of deep hibernation and started working on them again.  I love, love, love these, but I've learned something about myself:  I hate doing 2-handed colorwork on dpns.  It's ridiculously slow going for me, and also awkward and fiddly.  If I'm ever going to make all the fabulous colorwork mittens in my queue, I'm going to have to brush up on my magic looping.  Maybe that will be easier?

Anyway, mitten #1 is chugging along (No, really.  It is.) rather nicely...

I have high hopes to finish it this week, but we'll see if they materialize.

In other news, I started a Hermione's Everyday Sock to knit up on the plane and during down time on vacation.  I absolutely love the yarn, but it's a little bit fuzzy so the stitch definition isn't great.  I think I'm okay with it though.  It's such a pretty color, and sooo soft.

And yep.  This is me practicing my magic looping.  So far so good, but I'd be farther along on the sock if I had any clue how to work a heel on two needles.  I think I've got some youtube time in my near future.  It can't be that hard, right?

That's what's going on around these parts this Wednesday.  I'm still working on the Austin Hoodie, but haven't made any progress to speak of lately so you'll see it again when it's bigger.  Until then, go check out all the lovely projects on the needles and hooks over at WIPW.  See you Friday!