I went to Borders Tuesday and it was wonderful as always. Such a great group. I got to sit by my friends Mary and Mary… and then later talked to Lili and my other friend (shhh, don’t tell but her name is Mary also but she uses an alias at this group for obvious reasons), who grew up in Lansing but lives in Ann Arbor now.

Lili brought her completed ColorJoy Stole. What a masterpiece this is. She combined something like 15 yarns to make it. The base is black, but it has accents of purple, rust and turquoise. Breathtaking. Isn’t it lovely?

Sabra said she used the handpainted alpaca yarn she got from me in November, to make a sweater for her daughter in law for Christmas. She told a great story of finishing it in the DIL’s living room on Christmas day. The yarn was about a sportweight if I remember right. Sabra paired it with a soft Peruvian wool in purple (my yarn was turquoise/purple/blue). She did not have pictures, but said that her DIL gets compliments on the sweater each time she wears it. I’m very pleased.

Wednesday I went in for 3 hours to help out at JoAnn for the lunch hour (they called me in at short notice). I had a nice surprise, because Faina, president of the Mid Michigan Knitting Guild came in. I was helping another customer who had briefly stepped away from the counter, so I had just a minute to talk but not nearly enough to connect well. It was good to see her, in any case.

I had 9 knitters Wednesday, three newbies. They did great. And a couple of my other kids are really starting to get moving quickly. One girl still makes a good handful of “hiccups” but she speeds along with gusto. It appears she is making a belt right now, it started out as a wristwarmer I think. Loops and holes all over, but she is not increasing a stitch every row any more so she is really making good progress. She’s one of my youngest and really enjoying the magic of it all.

I got to see my friend Altu briefly when I popped in to her restaurant for lunch. We will be going out for coffee on Thursday. I’m delighted. You know, in the end, it is those we love who really matter in life. Not a schedule or a deadline or a worry or a garden to weed. The people we love matter most. At least today, I remember that. I’m grateful. I think that’s why I go to so many of these guilds and gatherings. I really value connecting with others of like minds.

Wowie, I’m still really tired. I stayed up too late the last two nights dyeing yarn. I’m making small progress in getting ready for Bloomiefest, a casual retreat for socknitters in Bloomington Illinois (not Indiana, really). They are allowing me to have a table for selling my yarns, and we will spend the weekend (March 12-14) knitting, talking about fiber, spinning, eating, talking about fiber, whatever. I am very excited. It’s very soon now… so I really need to get some yarn dyed. I’ve been so busy working for JoAnn over the holidays and beyond, that I have not had blocks of time for dyeing.

I guess two small batches is a bit more than I’ve dyed in months, so I’m pleased. One is an Alpaca blend that started out a sort of taupe-beige and I overdyed it with teal. Really nice. I also did a “Seaside, the Sequel” batch of 8 skeins of my Cushy ColorSport in the general vein of the yarn I dyed this September for Annie Modesitt’s retreat. It has more purple and blue, and turquoise but not emerald green as before. It “reads” blue from a distance. I think it will go over well, at least I hope it will.

Now off to bed.

Tuesday night (tonight) is the Borders Knit-in in Ann Arbor, at the Arborland location. I’m hyped, I have missed this group since December. They are great people.

If anyone wants to meet us, it’s at the Washtenaw (Ann Arbor direction) exit from US-23, just north of US-94 and south of M-14. People start gathering, I don’t know, maybe as early as 6 or 6:30 but I usually get there around 7. We have show and tell I think at 8pm and other than that we talk. The place closes at 11 if I remember right, and I’m always one of the last out the door for the night. Just a great crowd.

(It’s the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of each month, but I go to the Lansing MMKG meetings on 3rd Tuesdays during the school year… if you miss this meeting, put it on your calendar for another time.)

Hope you can join us.

Monday I visited my friend Deb (Scarlet Zebra). It’s quite a drive, but worth it. We find a place to have lunch where they will let us sit and do show-and-tell for a while. I brought my Heels and Toes Gazette to show her my latest published pattern, and she showed me (among other things) a quilt she is making for a show, in part using some hand-dyed fabrics she made.

She lives between Flint and Port Huron, so I was passing by less than 10 minutes from Elaine’s Yarn Shop (owned/run by Marj, go figure) in Davison. I enjoy that shop so I stopped by, and even ran into a knitter from Lansing who recognized me from a Yarn for Ewe knit-in. How cool is that?

At Elaine’s, I got two balls of Patons Kroy Socks yarn (right two skeins in photograph). The colors are almost identical to those in the Trampoline sox I just finished for myself, but the yarn is different. Trampoline is a stretch yarn with more nylon. This is a more standard sock yarn. I’ve heard folks on the Socknitters email list say they like this yarn but I’ve never knit with it. We’ll see how it goes. I’m sure I’ll enjoy the colors: Navy, turquoise, purple and grass green. Very nice.

On the way home I realized I had time to get to Yarn for Ewe before they closed. So off I went to see my friends there! Marlene O. was there, and so was Sarah, and a good solid handful of customers to boot.

I’m really looking at their Manos del Uruguay yarn, which is handspun and hand-dyed in Uruguay. I’m sure it’s the same yarn as the Ralph Loren sweater I picked up in Florida last week. If I unravel that sweater and buy some of the yarn from Yarn for Ewe, I could have a beautiful, warm, colorful sweater. If I felt like knitting a sweater, that is! Or maybe I could make a good felted bag? I have those gift certificates, and the Manos is a luxury I probably would not choose to afford if it were out of my own spending plan… but what a great way to spend a gift certificate? I’m pondering the possibilities before I dive in, but it would be great. I bet it would be pretty in Entrelac, but I don’t think I want to purl that much, not a sweater anyway.

But for this visit, I got two balls of Steinbach Wolle Eroica in greens and blues. It’s a wool/acrylic yarn that says it can be washed at 86F/30C, so I am going to make some sox for me! It looks to maybe be a sportweight so maybe it will knit up fast. (The balls I got this time are at the left of the photo, and the ball at the bottom I got to experiment with for a project I never did, so I’ll use it to test wash/dry the yarn and see what happens before I dive in.)

I also got the new Knitters magazine. I love reading the stories of people… there is an Irish designer… Maggie (oh drat, lost her last name here for a minute) who is profiled in the magazine and I enjoyed that story immensely.

When I got home, I started a new dyeing session that I hope will last a few days. I started with some alpaca/wool blend and am going to do some more Cushy ColorSport very soon. Such fun!