Road Trip, Baby.

Oh, yeah. Krista and I are going to make the pilgrimage to WEBS on Saturday, and I am pretty psyched. She made the cutoff for the SAM5, so she needs some sock yarn, and what better place to get it? I am only slightly bitter that I didn't get in myself. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

Now, I have a few things to mention about WEBS. The first thing is that I did go there over the holiday season, and I never really posted what I got or any of that. The second is what a small world it is sometimes.

So here's the scoop with the first visit, over the holidays. After my Mom and sister Ann and I left Webs on my first visit, we hatched a little plan. I had been dying to pick up some yarn and make a sweater for Brian. Well, I'll just say that there wasn't really money left for that. Ann said that she would want to go in on the yarn for a sweater with me, if that would help. Hmmm? Sounded pretty good. Then she talked to my Mom about it, and they both agreed that would make a great gift...they buy him the yarn and I knit the sweater. Long story short, we chose some Zara yarn for him, in a nice dark charcoal color. I knew he liked the color and had seen the yarn before and loved it. And we made sure to choose a yarn he could return if he wanted to.

Part of Brian's gift for me was to take me to WEBS and we'd piddle around and I got spend X-amount of money. You get the idea. Wow, good gift, huh?! Anyway, we brought his yarn along with us, just in case. (Now I seem to have totally spaced and I never really got a picture of the yarn. It was gorgeous, though.)

I cannot begin to tell you how much fun I had there. We really enjoyed ourselves, and even better, no kids with us. Brian finally found the yarn he wanted for a sweater, after much pattern searching, yarn perusing, gauge explanation, and sweater touching. My guy's got good taste, too. He went with Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Chunky in a great two toned beige-tan color. And we got a few other things, too...

Here's the sweater yesterday:



You can see that I did a hat swatch, a la Elizabeth Zimmermann, like a good girl.



And in this shot you can see my new 24" and 40" cables and US 9's and 7's Options Tips from Knitpicks. Love 'em.

Here is some of the rest:



OK, I got EZ's Knitting Around because I needed it for the sweater. Brian's yarn is not in the shot, but boy does it take a lot of yarn to make a man's sweater. The blue/grey yarn on the left is for sweaters for Keegan and Spencer. It's Classic Elite Inca Print. Very nice. And of course, there's lots more, but I just put in the one hank. The creamy colored stuff is for me, it's Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Super Bulky, and I'm not sure what I'll make with it, but it will be for me, and be along the lines of mittens and a hat or earwarmer, I suspect. And finally, the multicolored sock yarn. Oh, did I forget that? It's only my most coveted sock yarn, the one I saw on Heather's post on the SNB forum and I HAD TO HAVE some. Mmm, yummy, yummy.

Oh, yeah--little teaser for you. The red book behind the EZ book? It's this:



McCall's KNITTING with step-by-step instructions for beginners. Book 2 On the cover, it says 75 cents! So cute. I got this from my Mother-in-Law, Suzanne (who loved her scarf, thanks for asking) while we were there for Christmas. I will go into that visit later, there were lots of surprises, and I do have pics. Next post. Inside the book are all kinds of cool things, including a Barbie dress and coat, doll clothes, and some stuff that's actually back in style! Crazy. Suzanne pulled it out of her knitting basket while we were there, and she told me I could have it. Pretty cool.

In the end, I didn't really get much that day at Webs for myself, because I mostly bought for Brian and the boys. So I did finish my "X-amount" at The Loopy Ewe. I'll save that for later. Let me go on to the second thing I wanted to share about Webs.

Now you know I'm in Ravelry, right? Well, there are all kinds of forums and boards on which to chat, discuss, and ask questions. And I've been seeing someone's avatar on the boards and thinking that they looked familiar. But people are on there from all over the globe, so chances are, it's just my imagination. But I keep seeing her. So I peek at her profile, and she's from Western Mass (and I grew up in the central Mass area, so it's not far). Hmmm...weird coincidence. I see she has an Etsy store and dyes yarn, so I think, why not take a peek? Oh, pretty yarns, by the way, take a look. Did you look? Yeah, her store is called "KEEGAN Lanes Yarns!! Same name as my son...weirder. I decide to take a quick gander at her blog, just to see if her son's name is Keegan, too. I read and read, and then I see a picture. And it clicks! She works at WEBS! Yeah, that's right--she's the girl from the store who gave us the tour and was so sweet and nice!! (If you click on the link above about my first visit, you can read about it.) I am sure of it, and I can see the store in the background of the picture, too. Isn't that cool?

I was a bit nervous that I might sound like a sort of crazy-stalker-type, but I sent her a message on Ravelry. And I sort of explained who I was, and just said hi. She was so cool!! Melissa remembered me (probably from jumping up and down in the back room while clapping my hands like a 4 year old). So I just had to share that experience, because it's really neat. I was kind of hoping she's be in on Saturday when Krista and I head to the store, but sadly, she's got the day off. Or maybe she's calling frantically right now, demanding, no--begging for the day off, so she won't have to see this "crazy psycho" from Ravelry? Hey, you never know.

Finally, a quick update on Brian's sweater. I think the universe is trying to tell me something. When I tried to get the EZ book at Webs, they only had the Knitting Workshop out, so I about gave up. Then I asked someone for some help and got the right book. They're awesome about that, by the way...always ask. I get home, look through the book. Yeah. Wrong book. It's the one they had on the shelf that I actually needed. Hence the trip on Saturday, for the right book, the original book. Later, we measure Brian and he decides the size sweater he wants based on a fave sweatshirt. Fine. I get the yarn, do my swatch, do the math and cast on. I knit a row or two and he digs out some sweaters. Indeed, the same sweaters I asked him to try before. Anyhow, he decided he needs a different size. 49" instead of 46". Fine. I rip it back, I cast back on. I don't complain. I say I want him to be happy with his sweater, and I'm glad he checked, so I didn't knit the sweater too small. I knit and knit. I knit about 8 inches on the thing, and I put it onto two cables and have him try it on. As I suspected but tried to ignore, too big. I measure it. Three inches too big. I'm getting 52". No. No. No.

I check my gauge some more, because I usually tend to loosen up, and I seem to be right, but obviously, it's too big. Wanting to give Bri the right sweater, I rip it back again. Sad. Even Brian was sad. And apologizing. A lot. He helped pull while I rewound...THREE balls of yarn. Ugh. I cast back on. Yes, you know it--the same number of stitches I had cast on originally. Darn Universe. I'm still not listening, but morale is a smidge low.