There was lovely coffee and knitting yesterday afternoon at Elliott Bay. I only had to frog twice due to excessive chatting ;) (Once I left stitches on the cable needle and then proceeded to knit all the way across the row. I went to turn and saw the needle dangling there, heh)

I'm so glad that I finally learned to increase and decrease in from the edge, and to use the stitch with the proper slant. I keep admiring the nice smooth shape to the vest arm hole. Yes, I'm a complete and utter geek, in case there was any doubt left.

Joy is making lovely progress on her afghan, she's not going to want to lug it around soon.

I'm obsessing about sock making now that I have short rows down. I really need to finish my fuzzy feet, maybe I'll sneak some knitting on them in this weekend. I'm not too worried (touch wood!) about finishing mom's vest on time. What I really want to make are some nice thick wool hiking socks, but I will finish the slippers first. I will!

Oh and after I made several posts about not buying any more yarn for a while... yep. I ordered some more endless summer sonata for another tank top. I have a good excuse though, Elann is running out of the good colors! LOL

It's knitting Wednesday! Which means getting to hang out with Joy at Elliott Bay. :)

I'm feeling pretty with it today, all things considered. We had a brief strong windstorm blow though, and we've been out of power at home since 6pm yesterday. I except it will be back on by the time I drag myself home. But even though we had a candlelit evening (playing monopoly!) and I got ready for work by flashlight, I still managed to remember everything I needed. (I think!)

Work on mom's vest is proceeding nicely. I seem to have lost my last remaining cable needle in Victoria over the weekend, though. (Hey! I only had three to begin with, it's not as bad as it sounds) So I've been using a #10 dpn. (The vest is being knit on #7's) It turns out to be quite the happy accident because I love using the bigger dpn! The stitches stay on without any glaring or swearing from me. I think I'll probably stick with this in the future. Maybe I'll even make some short little dpns from the vast quantity of dowels I have on hand for making regular dpns. I ended up giving in to my paranoia and ordering another skein of the yarn even though I'm not sure if I'll need it. I'd rather have to think up something to do with it than have them run out and be left holding an almost finished Mother's Day present.

In other news, I'm going to have to make some more cotton tank tops this spring so I don't wear my red one to death. I'm looking forward to making some with different edgings and what nots.

I got my second webbs order on Friday. (More yarn porn) This is why I'm Cut Off.

Here's a look at the first front piece of the vest. Excuse the slight squishing and curl, I put it in the scanner ;)

We had a great time in Victoria over the weekend. Here are the knitting highlights ;) First up was the 90 minute ride over on the boat, where I finished up the back of mom's vest.



Then we tracked down Beehive Wool. I just fell in love with this place!



They had a great selection, the employees were helpful and friendly without being pushy. It was just an ideal store. I'm going to need to get up there on a regular basis now. Here's my haul from the first days shopping.



See those two Burgundy skeins on the left... Guess what they're made of.... They're 70% merino and 30% possum. Yes, possum. LOL It's wonderful yarn, silky soft... and it was on sale. But even if it wasn't, I would have bought it anyway, just because it's possum.

Besides having such a great selection, their prices were wonderful. I'd say a good 30% less than my local shops on average. So I talked the boy into one more visit before we left yesterday. I picked up 4 balls of worsted weight lopi for Karen's bag because I fell in love with the rainbow of colors. As an example of their prices, the lopi was $3.50 canadian each. The bottom purple gallway wool is hopefully destined for a pair of socks.



Oh! I almost forgot, when I went back to the shop on Sunday, I was chatting with the nice lady at the counter about how I was only up for the weekend, but this was already my 2nd time in, and she told me I should really get a punch card, that she has lots of regulars from Seattle. And when I accepted, she asked how much I had spent the day before, and added that to the card as well. I really can't recommend this shop enough :)

I also got a bit of knitting done on the front of mom's vest. I decided that it needed a little something after all, and added a single aran braid up the center of each side. I haven't taken a picture yet, but I'm really pleased with how it's looking.