My 100th Project

I have completed my 100th Project: The Olympia Shawl.  Learning to knit has been a wonderful journey for me.  I have tried tons of different yarns and methods and patterns and....and....and, etc.  On this shawl alone, I have knitted, unknitted, reknitted, and even a small moment where I thought this would end up in the trash but alas, here it is.  I can't think of anything else to say except...Ta-da!

Yarn Shopping

Yesterday, my favorite yarn shop had a 50% off sale.  A friend of mine and I went trekking across the reservoir to Plano, Texas to shop at the Woolie Ewe.  We spent about an hour and a half there.  I was like a kid in a candy store. 

My friend is a new knitter and hadn't been to the Woolie Ewe before and she looked like I did the first time I went.  You can see that "I don't know what to look at first..." glint in her eye but she managed make some fantastic selections of beautiful yarn to make fingerless mitts with.

Our plan was to purchase yarn to make mitts from the new Antje Gillingham book, Knitting Circles Around Mittens and More.  This is exactly what she did:  she bought several yarns to make mitts out of the new book.  Me, on the other hand, I bought mitts yarn, and scarf yarns and a couple of yarns I don't even know what to do with.  I had a blast but as usual my focus is mediocre at best!

Wool and polyester, 4 different kinds of cashmere silk aran, 100% extra fine merino, and something with silk ribbons hanging out of it. You can see I had kind of a pink/red and blue/gray theme going yesterday.  With one exception, the AIR fall color yarn lurking in the back.

So we headed to lunch and then back to her place to cast on.  After we got there, I realized I had brought the wrong bag of stuff so I couldn't start my new mitts.  I got her started but being me, I was thinking of how I cast on the mitts instead of following the instructions... Consequently, I had her knitting the first row instead of K2, P2 ribbing.  Eeep!  So my teaching skills were seriously lacking but I made up for it last night and taught two other friends how to knit ; )

Whenever I screw up like that I always think of the old saying that "errors are part of baseball" and well, same for knitting, too. I make errors quite often with my "cursed mitt" and I'm OK with that, unfortunately, I've been known to spread that to my innocent students. Someday I'll have to share with you how I compare my life to being a 2nd base baseball player on a minor league team with a cursed mitt....but I'll save that for one of those days when I feel philosophical.  In the mean time...Good yarn hunting to you all!