Still lurking, but coming out for a bit to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who's celebrating the holiday here in USA!

Now I need to go fix myself a nice breakfast of homemade English muffins that I baked last night, to tide me over until our 3:30pm reservation at Kent Manor Inn & Restaurant . . .

Yup, still practicing project monogamy and hating it. The end's near in sight, though. I have only about 2 1/2 more inches on the back and then it's done, done, done. Oh, but not so fast . . . back to the sleeves. Sigh. I'm so ready to move on.

I haven't registered for Stitches East because I still don't have disposable funds large enough (arrrrgggghh). But the Market is open, and there will be some freebie classes, so I'm going to tag along with hubby to work and spend the day hanging out at the Market and sniffing and petting yarn, and gawking at people's knitwear. Which means I need to get on with finishing my Backpack 2.0.

I've come across Knitting Scholar and it's a great source for book reviews. This is going to really help me to make decisions on which books to buy. Now if only there were more intermediate and advanced knitting books . . .

And the Mendocino cardigan is a real thorn in my hiney. As it turns out, ahem, the rate of the sleeve increases was way, way off and if I'd continued , the top would have been very, very wide. I had to have Genia take a look at my original sleeve to see what the actual increase rates were (I'd had to do some modifications to the pattern). Moral: always write down the rates.

I finally got a chance to take a picture of what I picked up in San Francisco. I didn't go hog wild, but made sure that these would be unique items. The book, "Seven Things that can "Make or Break" a Sweater", is more of a technique book, although there are some pattern in the back. She covers cast-ons, the fact that increasing and decreasing stitches have left or right directions that can be very noticeable, blocking, and so forth. Some of the facts are very eye-opening, illustrated with photos accenting her points.

I picked this book up at Imagiknits, I also picked up a nice skein of Prism Yarn lace wool. I haven't decided what shawl pattern to use with this skein. To round out the purchase, I picked up a mall cone of Habu wool stainless steel yarn in laceweight. Yes, you read that correctly. It's an interesting yarn, and you can bend the strand every which way. Perhap a little doily pattern for this cone.

Of course, being in San Francisco, I just had to visit Britex Fabrics. This is a fabulous fabric store, with luxury fabric, heirloom lace, and even a little bit of yarn. See that scrap of fabric in the middle? I found this really nice 3-yard remnant of this 56" cotton bolt on the 4th floor, where they have remnants. I was looking for tapestry fabric, but couldn't find anything of that kind, s I settled for this one. I should be able to get some nice bags and accessories out of this. I also picked up two grab bags of buttons.

I'e heard quite a bit about Artfibers Yarn, so naturally, since it was downtown near the cable turnaround (well, within 4 or 5 blocks), I had to check them out. I'm not too fond of novelty yarn, but there was some interesting yarn there, so I picked up two yarntasting samplers. And I added to my growing stitch marker collection.

This is what I've been spinning up. A lovely coopworth/alpaca blend. I have two skeins plied up so far, and I have some more on the bobbin that I've got to ply up. i don't think it's going to be quite enough for a good-sized shawl, so I'm going to have to spin up another batch of coopworth/alpaca blend that is dark gray in color. Hopefully I can free up the bobbins this weekend so I can get started on another batch.

Hello all . . . yep, I've been playing hooky from the blog for the past few weeks. I've spent quite a bit of time spinning and not making much knitting progress, and getting ready for our San Francisco trip. Hubby had a 3-day workshop to attend, courtesy of The Company, and it just wouldn't be so fair for him to leave me behind, wouldn't it? So, I was able to take this lovely picture standing at the top of the Crookedest Street in San Francisco. I really feel for the residents of this street who have to deal with stupid tourists standing on walls that they aren't supposed to be and just gawking every which way.

And then it was off to a cousin's wedding in New Jersey a day after flying back. Then, yesterday, over to my parents' home to help my mother get the boys settled down for the night while sister and b-i-l were off attending some event. Needless to say, I'm quite worn out and just resting at home quietly. There are a lot of things to get in order around the house. But I'm looking forward to getting back to my spinning wheel as I'd like to get going on the shawl for mother.

Yes, I bought some yarny stuff but I do need to take pictures of these which will hopefully happen later day. Gotta go for the moment . . .