Forgive me, oh great and powerful Internet, for I have sinned. It’s been 5 1/2 weeks since my last entry, and - whoops, sorry, channeling someone else’s childhood. There has been so much going on the last few weeks, all leading up to today - my last day of vacation. While you would think that this would mean that my house is clean and stocked with groceries, and that I’ve caught up on all the little things that have been going undone, you would be completely wrong. The house is a wreck, there’s nothing to eat, and while I’m going to try to rectify that last part today, the wreck will just have to remain. I have baked, I have lazed, I have read, I have knitted, and I even went for my Mother’s Day massage and manicure yesterday. Since there’s so much to catch up on, I’m just going to hit the highlights and throw a bunch of pictures up, and it will look like I’ve worked oh-so-hard on this entry, while I’m really just flying by the seat of my pants as usual.

We (and I mean that in the royal sense) have graduated, or at least survived it. Holly’s family came in from Korea, did a whirlwind tour of Winston-Salem and Atlanta, and went back home, taking her with them. We’ll see her again at Christmas, but that’s a long time away! Before she left, I made sure she was appropriately knit-covered:

Fountain hat from Interweave Knits - pattern here. Yarn is some funky hand-dyed we found on Granville Island in Vancouver.

Basic socks in Online Summer yarn.

Also on hand is yarn for socks and a scarf and hat in Holly’s new school colors, sent by Mom with her graduation gift. Fortunately I have a few months to worry about that.

Hayley’s chorus teacher and his wife welcomed their first baby, Madeleine. We thought socks an appropriate gift (aren’t they always?), and the teachers at school just flipped over these:

My own pattern with a ruffled edge in leftover Lorna’s Laces in Happy Valley.

Sarah and I joined the girls from the Charlotte Purls and the Charlotte Knitting Guild for some fun on WWKIP Day in Charlotte. There were lots of knitters, knit shops, pizza, and even snow cones! And of course, door prizes. Sarah and I both got prizes for being the people who had driven the furthest to the event - I got the Little Box of Socks (I love it!) and Sarah got Stitch ‘n Bitch on CD.

Stacey gave me a hard time about my lazy-person chair, and the fact that my ball of yarn was conveniently resting in my drink holder:

We ran into the lovely and talented Jan Smiley again, and met Connie with the cool Columbine wheel.
I of course had to pose for pictures with Cristi and Stacey.

Before we headed for home, we made a quick detour to Charlotte Yarn, where we’ll just say we had a great time and found lots of stuff we loved!

Fast forward to last Thursday, when we left for Waynesboro, Virginia. Now Waynesboro is not really that exciting, but it is where the Blue Ridge Parkway officially starts. Mark and I, and about 30 of our MINI friends, met there to drive the entire Blue Ridge Parkway this weekend. The Parkway itself is 469 miles, but driving to the top and home from the bottom added considerably, and we put about 1100 miles on the new MINI over the weekend. We made stops at key sites for photos, hiking, eating, and spending the night. We had a great time, though I was truly happy to be out of the car when we got home. I got teased a good bit about always having knitting in my hands, but I managed to finish about a sock and a half of this pair, along with bits of another pair, during the trip.
They’re officially known as Spring Forward socks, but I can’t stop referring to them as Sproingy socks. The twisty-turny pattern was perfect for the drive we were doing at the time. I did have to put down my knitting at a few points, this one in particular (this is a GPS photo - the pink is the road we’re on):

It does look pretty bad, but realize this - it’s down the side of a mountain. Down, the whole way. I held on pretty tightly, and Mark was ghostly white by the time we got to the end of it. It was worth it, though, for these gorgeous views.

We got a lot of strange looks when we were stopped anywhere as a group, and here’s why:

(We’re the front car on the right in both pictures.)

We had tried to visit a yarn shop in Staunton, Virginia, but they apparently had a staffing issue and were closed. There was a sign on the door stating this, and they gave a number to call in case of emergency. It took me a few minutes to decide that me being there probably wouldn’t qualify as an emergency, so we left. We did have a few extra minutes in Boone (9, to be exact), during which I popped into a cute little shop called Laura’s Yarn-Tastic. Since time was limited, I bought the only thing I knew I could buy without a pattern or yardage needed - sock yarn. They had just gotten in a great shipment of Miss Babs sock yarn (and chunky yarn - oh man - need more time!), so I found 3 that I loved, and we were out of there.

From top: Rainbow, Rock Wall, Rose Garden (got my 3 R’s for the day!)

So, that’s it - 5 weeks in review. I promise to try to do better, if there’s anyone out there still actually reading!

Comments RSS