bad blogger

i did a bad thing while i was in minneapolis . . .

see, i had it all planned that i would travel light and leave most of my electronics at home. since i carry my cell phone everywhere when traveling, i’d have a camera right at my fingertips anyway and i wouldn’t need another one.

which worked out fine on friday when i arrived—we visited the linden hills yarn shop on our way to lunch, where we were welcomed and chatted up nicely by the friday knitting group.

by “we” i mean our friends michelle, mary pat, and diane who picked me up at the airport and arranged lunch for the four of us at tilia, where we were met by a travel channel TV crew and tour bus, hmmm.

lunch was divine; we all had the signature fish sandwich, which that day was the subject of travel channel TV story—such excitement! (plus, if you like pea soup—and i do—theirs is delightful; i scraped my bowl).

afterward, we stopped off at wild rumpus, a children’s bookstore and reading room, as weird and wonderful as its name implies (we like weird; you know that).

among the many creatures that make their home in the store were hairless rats

a tarantula (all safely caged)

birds and ferrets

and of course . . .

if you have all of those critters, you must have chickens running loose as well.

the cat of course, is above all that—no really, it is.

i loved it; i could have stayed all day, but i needed to get back to the hotel to prepare for dinner (as in, get a nap first to sleep off lunch).

on the way back to the car, we met milly, who was just heading into the bookstore herself to see about maybe moving in there. she has a loving family, but they have new jobs which require them to travel a lot, so she’s looking for another place where she’ll have more company.

and that was just one block—so far, my first visit to this fine city was proving very interesting indeed. my camera got a good workout, too.

so, i dunno what happened after that, but i took no more photos the entire weekend, oy. i was just having too nice a time meeting friends from ravelry, trolling the market at lunchtime, and teaching classes.

rosemary took this lone photo of me and the rainey sisters after the teacher dinner on saturday night and that’s all i got. (not that i didn’t have ample opportunity, being seated at the table with lily chin, annie modesitt, and my dear friend sivia harding—WHAT was i thinking that camera was for, anyway??)

well, suffice it to say that the weekend was jam-packed with activity—in a good way. my classes were lively and fun and i met some new-to-me yarnies that i hope to get to know better.

plus, i got to hang out on friday night with some of our lovely club members at dinner, who were all decked out in knitspot regalia—a leaving sweater, a hazeline shawlette, and a longshadows scarf (i wore my ondule sweater with my gray garden shawl)—it was quite the gathering.

liz even brought me a beautiful and touching gift—a serenity bowl made for me by her husband from arbutus wood found on vancouver island. i love this thing!! it has a very soothing, sexy look and feel to it; it really does the trick for quelling anxiety (sorta like prayer beads or a worry stone).

i placed it on the mantel in our bedroom, where i keep my jewelry in a row of interesting boxes, mostly wood—it fits in perfectly.  thank you liz, i’m deeply grateful for such a lovely gift.

ok, so now, about my knitting . . . .

i did a TON of knitting on this trip, but as usual, it’s almost ALL secret. the reason for that is that i’m flying to san diego later today with beckie, to visit our friend kim and i won’t be able to work on secret knitting there at all. so i had to get lots done last weekend.

however, i did manage to do a little work on my plain jhayne mitt and now it’s almost done. i know that’s not the knitting prøn you were hoping for, but i promise that very soon, the wait will be worth it.

in the meantime, i’m keeping my cards close to the chest.

for my san diego trip, i’ll bring the holda sweater project—i’ll probably get a lot done on that, too, so you’ll see lots of progress shots from the road. i’m also bringing a sock along for moments when i need a small something i can pull out of my purse—probably one of the waffle creams from the april BNK shipment—i have two incomplete pairs right now, one in each color of our barenaked alpaca/merino yarn. it would be nice to finish one pair up for david’s winter sock stash . . .

and lastly, a secret project that will be ok for kim to see. oooh, i love secrets . . .

ok now, i have lots to do before i leave this afternoon, so i’m going to skedaddle. next time you see me, i’ll be standing in front of a palm tree or some other southern california icon.