Making Up For Lost Time

Occasionally, my four day work week schedule gives me a four day weekend. Such was the case this past weekend. And what a wondrous, fibery-filled weekend it was.

Friday, Wendy and I took a fiber field trip (for research purposes) to the Mass Ave Knit Shop in Indianapolis, Indiana. This was Wendy's favorite yarn haunt when she lived in Indiana, and she wanted to share the wealth. And there was an amazing amount of wealth to be shared. Want to see some of the wealth I brought home? Of course you do.

Here's the obligatory sock yarn. Artyarns Ultramerino, pink/white and gold/yellow/white. I realized not too long ago that I didn't have any yellow sock yarn, and Wendy will tell you that this yellow yarn was the first thing I picked up when I walked into the store, and I had a hard time putting it down. Bee-youtiful. I think Artyarns Ultramerino might be my absolute favorite sock yarn. There's only one tiny thing I don't like about it, and that's that it works up best on #1s, and I prefer #2s. But I can get over that in order to use the Artyarns.

Umm, I may have cast on already with the pink and white. Maybe. Because I didn't have anything else in the works. You know how it is.

From the sale room: Patons Fresco. This stuff is 100% acrylic, but it's like knitting with tiny tubes of t-shirt. I mean,

check this out:

I was a little unsure of this stuff after I found it, and Wendy convinced me that I needed it. It was only $4 a ball, after all, and I've since found the perfect little hoodie pattern for it. Now all I need to do is find an adorable little man to fit in it.

I also got some Euroflax 100% linen. I've been wanting to try some for a while, but I'd not seen it in any exciting colors before. I was smitten as soon as I saw the orange.

Saturday morning I had the first sock club of the summer newsletter, and I introduced four new sock clubber incentives, including a "buy 8 get 1 free" punch card and a different 10% sock-related discount each morning of sock club for sock clubbers only. I think the ladies there Saturday morning were impressed, especially the one who received that morning's free pass.

I worked the rest of the day at the store, then Dani and I went out for sushi again. (For my first sushi experience, go here.) We went back to Soho Japanese Bistro since we'd had such a good experience the last time. Dani insisted we try all new things this time, even though I'd had my heart set on another Angry Dragon (he's SO cute! and tasty!).

Here's our first plate. On the left top and bottom are our two sweet shrimp nigiri. Listed in the menu as "Crunchy" is the roll on the left in the middle. It's crab and avocado in the middle with a crispy tempura batter coating. I didn't think it was all that crunchy. Over on the right top is the Tiger Eye: smoked salmon, cream cheese and jalepeno rolled in seaweed, tempura battered and deep fried, then rolled with spicy mayo and masago (smelt fish eggs) in soybean paper. It was kind of a whole new twist on the jalepeno popper. I really liked this one.

Here's the second plate. On the top left: Spicy Salmon Roll, which, surprisingly, is made with chopped salmon and spicy mayo. Not bad, but not all that spicy. Diagonally down the middle: Hot Roll -- thinly sliced snapper tempura battered and deep fried, rolled with Japanese spicy mayonnaise, masago, and scallions. This is my new all time favorite (but I still love you, Angry Dragon!). SO yummy. Lastly, in the bottom right corner is Bunker Shot: eel, avocado and cucumber inside, salmon and eel sauce on top. Not bad, but not a favorite.

Sunday I worked the First Sunday event at the store and stayed for the store meeting afterwards.

Monday I met some friends for lunch (Hi Kimmie! Hi Leslie!) then spent four hours at the store working on my switch hitter sewing project. Some project, eh? Especially since I'm still not done after four hours. However, it shouldn't take another four hours before I'm finished.

Monday night I worked on a few more knitting projects. The tough thing about being a gifter-knitter is that most of my gifted knitting goes to my friends and family, and I like things to be at least something of a surprise, and that makes it difficult to have a lot of knitting content on the blog when almost everything is a gift. However,

The fancy sock is off the disabled list. I ripped back to just before the heel, and I've almost gotten past the gusset decreases again. I'm so much happier with the slip one knit one heel flap and the not-so-pointy heel turn.

I tricked the (no longer rookie) blue thing into finally reaching its 9 inches worth of stockinette.

And the turtle got his Mother's Day outfit. Maybe I can convince Mom to send a picture of him wearing his Sunday best.