Oh, My Good Fortune; Thank Goodness For Vodka!

Ok, before anyone gets excited, this post is not about alcohol. I was at a loss for a post title, so I scrolled through the drop-down menu of things previously typed in various places.

I have no idea where this one came from, but it cracked me up, so I am going with it.

Sue and I went to Oklahoma City last night to see The Yarn Harlot. We had a perfectly lovely time, although my camera seems to have gone a bit haywire, resulting in photos like this:

And this:

I do realize that one is exceptionally bad. I may need a new camera.

The pictures from the signing came out marginally better. Sue made Stephanie one of her beautiful tiara creations, which seemed to go over well.

We got to stand in line with The Prairie Knitter and other talented Oklahoma knitters, which made it lots of fun.

Please do check out The Yarn Harlot's charming account of her trip to Oklahoma.

In knitting news, I remain intimidated by Icarus. Want to see what I have done so far?

Yep, that's it. Nice, eh?

I'm Hooked--A Story in Pictures

I got a parcel from Amazon on Thursday from my Secret Pal. I opened it to find this (thanks so much for this, SP. I really love this book. I almost bought it while I was on vacation too; you must have been reading my mind!):

And was immediately intrigued by this (well, the lovely photos in the book combined with the plethora of warshrags I've been seeing in blogland):

Which resulted in a trip to Hobby Lobby for these:

With which I produced these (so far!):

And then, in this morning's paper, in the Michael's circular, I spot this (Sugar 'n Cream on sale for $1 per ball):

And so, of course, I went and bought these:

So I guess everyone's getting these for Christmas this year. And birthdays too. They're so fun and quick to make, and the color combinations are dizzying. How can you not love something to cheap and quick to produce, I ask you?

Thanks to my One Skein Secret Pal for this:

I tried and tried to get a good picture of it, but I couldn't manage to get a non-fuzzy one. I think this is because the yarn itself is so soft and squishy, it kind of transforms the matter around it and blurs everything. That's the only thing I can think of. I really wish I had been able to get a photo that did the colors justice!

Oh! And Sue and I are going to Oklahoma City Tuesday evening to see the Yarn Harlot. That should be good fun.

Home Again

For those of you keeping track, I'm home from vacation. As always, we had a really good time relaxing in the sun, swimming in the ocean. Seems like this year we did less than usual, but ended up more exhausted at the end of the day. Maybe it's just that everyone's getting older.

I didn't get a whole lot of knitting done, although I did make it up to the gusset decreases on the first Koigu Jaywalker. Knitting on the beach is just all kinds of fun.

The house we stay in is right next to a protected dune area, so our stretch of the beach is practically deserted. There are only a few houses nearby, and our beach chairs were on the end, so it was very peaceful and private.

Last year, our vacation was cut short a few days because of a hurricane. I think a few of us were worried about the prospect of it happening again, but we needn't have been concerned. There was absolutely no rain the entire week, although the skies did cloud up threateningly a couple of times. We definitely lucked out, weather-wise!

We didn't spend all our time on the beach, however. We had dinner one night at Cafe 30-A, which is turning into a tradition, and for good reason. We made the trip into Seaside for some shopping and browsing. It's a very quaint little sea resort, full of pastel houses and overpriced shops. Seaside's always good for a quick walkthrough though.

And we took a ocean voyage on the Seablaster, a.k.a. The Beer Boat, another tradition. I did bring my knitting along for this excursion.

But first, look and see how amazingly green and clear the water was. It went on like this for miles and miles.

And I'll leave you with a knitting-related photo from the I-Swear-I-Thought-I-Got-His-Face-In-The-Picture file. One of the deckhands on the Seablaster was kind enough to pose with my Koigu Jaywalker. Just wanted to share it with my readers:

Countdown to Vacation

Just trying to fit in one last post before I leave for vacation on Saturday. In case anyone's curious, my husband's parents take the whole family to Seagrove Beach on the Florida Panhandle every year. The past two years, we've stayed here:
It's a fabulous house--private swimming pool and elevator included! It's always very hard to leave at the end of the week.

So my Koigu socks are ready for their beach vacation.

And our iPods are snuggled into their brand new cozies for the trip, stacked up with the board games we're taking along for the trip. For mine, I used the sock yarn I dyed with Kool-Aid. I kind of just made up the pattern as I went along, but I think it turned out pretty well. For Paul's I used Koigu leftover from the wedding socks in a mini-Jaywalker pattern. The cozies only took a couple of hours each to complete, and are perfect!

I ordered some Alpaca Cloud from KnitPicks to make the Icarus shawl with. It arrived today, and it's beautiful. The pale blue has darker blues and purples mixed in; I think it will make a fantastic Icarus. I have everything required to get started, but I just feel kind of intimidated by the pattern.

So I won't be back until the 18th, and I'm going to miss reading everyone's blogs, seeing photos of works in progress and works completed. Hopefully I'll have lots of good beach pics to share when I get home, although with this stupid camera of mine, I'm not too sure!

Oh! I just want to say that I am sooo excited about the return of Rock Star on CBS. Although this year's concept is a bit cringe-inducing, the first performance show was promising, and I'm looking forward to the weeks ahead!

And if anyone knows any yarn shops along the Panhandle, be sure to let me know!