More Yarn & a New Bag !

Before I get down to business I have a minor Public Service Announcement. Considering all the crappy weather that's been happening all over the midwestern and eastern part of the country, this could be rather important. If you should decide to start a fire in your fireplace and you have a traditional wood burning fireplace as opposed to a gas one, PLEASE PLEASE do not forget to open your chimney flue damper. My lovely friend Dilshani forget this small detail this morning when starting a fire to warm her place up. She called me after she stopped all the fire alarms in her house, opened all the windows to let the smoke escape, (thankfully it was a standard windy day here The Duke City which helped get the smoke out of the house) and calmed the dogs and herself. By the time she had called, I was reassured by her post panic laughter that the amount of smoke she had inhaled had been kept to a minimum. Dilshani should probably not be left unattended at home by herself, certainly not while baking bread, but that is a story for another day. In any event folks, please always remember to open the flue damper in your chimney when starting a fire!

If you remember my last post about my Birthday and the gifts I received, you may remember me mentioning my Mom got me another gift certificate to Village Wools so I could do a little more shopping! I LOVE gift certificates to Village Wools! I've received enough of them over the years now that I can tell what it is as soon as I see the envelope. I know the size and the color of their envelopes well enough that I don't even have to open it to know its one of their gift certificates. At any rate, it allowed me to do a little more shopping and who doesn't LOVE to shop for yarn?! Village Wools had gotten a shipment about a week and a half ago of a bunch of stuff; Malabrigo sock yarn and Rios, Wooly Wonka Aerten DK with cashmere and Arianrhod Lace with stellina, and Madelintosh Sock, Tosh Merino Light, DK and Pashmina. I had lots to choose from. I was drawn to the Madelintosh Sock because there was a brand new colorway in and there were 2 skeins of it. Anyone who knows how I shop knows that I will generally buy 2 skeins of sock yarn, if that's what I'm buying, so I have plenty enough to design a shawl.There are lots of patterns out there designed to use 1 skein of sock yarn but my patterns are not any of them. I like to wear and design bigger shawls than that which requires me to have more than 1 skein of sock yarn. The shawls I design usually use about a skein and a half of fingering weight yarn, give or take a bit, but I digress. The colorway of the yarn I got was called Ember. Its one of the new Madelinetosh colorways and It Is Gorgeous. Here it is...

Isn't it stunning!? There were a couple of colorways I was looking at and everyone in my crowd said to get this one as opposed to the other new colorway which I cannot remember the name of but was equally as pretty. I've also been trying to get colorways that I don't have anything like. I tend to gravitate, like we all do, towards a certain shade of colorways but I'm trying to expand that out a bit. This Ember colorway is very close to a lot of the colors I wear because of the color of my hair. Its a cross between a brick red and a burnt orange and its fabulous! Just like all of the other fingering weight yarns I own, I cant wait to design something awesome with it! I also added to my collection of cables while I was there. I have a large collection already but what I didn't have was another pair of 16 inch cables so I can have more than 1 pair of mitts or socks going on at the same time. I prefer the Knitters Pride cables to the Knit Picks cables. I haven't had any problems with them at all and  I've heard of people having issues with the Knit Picks cables coming unattached at the join. Here they are...

I also picked out the buttons for the baby sweater I am making but haven't start yet. I wanted to keep the buttons in the same family of what I did for Savannah's sweater. Here's a closeup of Savannah's buttons...

I wanted to stay with this theme because the family is all about everything Celtic. Here are the buttons I chose...

I love them! One of the things I learned when I made the last sweater is the important of getting buttons that will fit through the button holes you make! Small detail but it wasn't anything I had thought about until I was making them the first time. With the baby sweater I am using a little heavier of a weight yarn and these buttons are only slightly larger than the ones I used before so it should work out perfectly! I'm happy with the choice and can't wait to see it when its all done and put together!

Last, but certainly in no way the least, in this blog post from last week I told you guys about the contest I won with Jessica Knits in Scottsdale Arizona. Well, today the bag arrived I assure you, it is AWESOME! The bag is made by Offhand Designs and it is the Iris model. It is made of Damask fabric in colors of purple and gold which, ironically, are my old High School's colors and are also the colors of Royalty. Everyone who knows me know my love of the Royals so I think that's really cool! It is a nice size bag with a lot of pockets. There is enough room on the inside to carry 2 bottles of wine or large bottles of water, whichever you prefer. It has a flat bottom to it and it will sit flat on its own. There are 4 large pockets on the outside too and has a magnetic closure at the top. Hers the front side of the bag...

...and the back side of the bag...

I really love this bag. It will go with my purple Namaste bag perfectly! I am looking forward to carrying this bag starting with my next knitting outing :-)

I will be doing lots of counting, charting and knitting this weekend. I'm finally getting the edging going on my Phydeaux Designs shawl and I'm really looking forward to it. I hope you are all having a wonderful week and are looking forward to a weekend filled with knitting. I'll see you back here soon so until then....Knit On!