Shepherd's Harvest Festival 2014

The Shepherd's Harvest Festival is an annual event held at the Washington County Fairgrounds near Lake Elmo, MN and I have gone for the last four years. It was me and my mom hitting the festival again this year. I like to get there when it opens on the first non-class day so I get to see the most amount of yarn and wares from the vendors. (Greedy little yarn diva that I am - I don't want to miss a thing with building up my yarn stash!) 

This year we decided to start in the last building first as that building tends to get high traffic and is hard to maneuver, and that is all because of the gentleman above who graciously welcomed me and my mom when we walked in the door. That is StevenBe who is also known as The Glitter Knitter and he is just the warmest, kindest person. He is doing a tour this summer across America with Stephen West and my head kind of explodes to even think of that level of awesome combining. (Ok - Enough with the fan girl!)

So the festival this year had three buildings set up for vendors rather than four, so it did feel a little scaled back to me. This is also the first year that they charged for entry, so I thought that was interesting. Frankly I think they should have charged all along as it is such a wonderful festival, and anything that they can do to sustain it is good with me!

There were spinners here and there, like this gentleman from the Blackberry Hills booth. So fun to watch! This was a busy booth and is you can see behind where he is spinning, they had some gorgeous handmade shawls for sale along with their other items. The shawls were just beautiful!

This is another example of a vendor booth. So much yarn and fiber goodness! This was at the entrance to one of the buildings and had great light and you pretty much just walked right in to an explosion of color and fiber fun when you walked into the building. So awesome.

Although I am not much for fleece, I do appreciate what it gets turned into, so that makes me like the fleece even if I have no use for it. (I WILL NOT SPIN! If I keep saying that it will be true, right?) It was pretty much impossible to walk buy a bag of fleece and not plunge your hands into it.

Here is a picture of me holding the reins of Lonnie the Llama. Lonnie is about 8 years old according to his human and he was so majestic. We were walking across the fair grounds and I spotted him and had to go meet him. My mom snapped this shot of me grinning wildly up at Lonnie. I just wanted to hug him and take him home!

After meeting Lonnie we headed over to the critter barn and got to see some llama's and alpaca's. It is always so fun to get up close to these guys and see them in touching distance.

 

Next we were off to the Sheep shearing which was just impressive. This gentleman can shear a sheep in no time and we watched him shear several breeds of sheep and learned a lot about the sheep as well.  Really neat!

So I managed to control my splurging this year better than years past. This is the haul I came home with. Some ridiculously reduced price yarns at one booth - like the Boku and the Nashua yarn. The white skeins are 100% alpaca from a vendor that I search out for at this festival every year. Really nice guy and the yarn is like touching heaven. Am quite pleased with my stash enhancements this year and also proud that I controlled myself a little bit.

My other bit of wonderful I picked up is this mug. Both me and my mom got the same mug and I use it all the time. It makes me smile every time I see it and it's just a fun addition to my festival memories.

All in all it was just a wonderful time. I love going to this festival and it was great fun spending the day with my mom and touching fiber and talking yarn and eating deep fried egg roles while sitting in the grass and watching the people with all their hand knit items being worn (quite a fashion show!) while they walked the fair grounds. I look forward to this every year and it's just something special.

Nerd Girl Yarns = Awesome B-day Gift

For my Birthday last month my parents gave me some spending money, which allowed me to go and get some yarn I have been wanting to try for a long time. I headed to Nerd Girl Yarns and looked through everything Yarn on the site. In the end I fell in love with these two yarns and had to get them.

Bounce and Stomp in the colorway "Bad Luck". I got the last available skein of this and I cannot wait to work it up. The stats from the website: "4-ply fingering - 75% superwash merino 25% nylon
Approximately 463 yards (423 meters), 100 grams".  When I pulled it out of the bag I went "Ooooooh" and gave it a squish with my hand. Oh yeah baby. That's what I like!

The color explosion above is a worsted weight yarn called "Clever" in the colorway Wonders. Here is the stats about it from the website: "100% superwash merino. 218 yards, 100 grams. worsted weight". I love love love the colors in this.

Living in Minnesota - I wear a scarf over half the year. Most of my coats are black. I wear blue jeans every day. Yawn. So a violent pop of color on my neutral colored wardrobe, when I live in an area that lacks any color in the landscape for months on end - well it makes me REALLY happy.  I am anxious to get knitting on this as well!

As for the shopping experience? Great! The website was well organized and easy to maneuver. I clicked on the link for "all items currently in stock" and cruised through them looking for my must haves. I have been to the site before looking for sci-fi themed yarns and been a bit confused about how that works. So I avoided that this time and had a better experience. I am drawn to a lot of her sci-fi lines of yarn - so I may need to figure that out in the future.

I was able to pay with PayPal (easy peasy) and got great confirmation of my purchase and tracking info. My yarn was in my hands just a few short days after I ordered it! Wonderful!

Very happy with my Birthday gift! 

Shepard's Harvest Festival, Part 3 - The Haul

And for my final installment, I thought I would show my gluttony off and post a couple photo's of the fabulousness that I brought back home with me.

I try really hard at these festivals to buy things that I cannot purchase at my Local Yarn Shops. This is actually a little hard to do as my local yarn shops are really really good! The Twin Cities is blessed with MANY wonderful shops and several of them had booths set up at the yarn festival. I love StevenBe "The Glitter Knitter" and his shops The Yarn Garage in Rosemount and Steven Be in Minneapolis, but his booth is ALWAYS swamped and I actually just try to do a quick drive by and then stay away. It reminds me of a beehive where all kinds of people are flying in and doing that intricate dance that bee's do when they fly into the hive and tell the other drones where the sweet sweet nectar can be found. His booth is like his stores - just filled with things that stop you in your tracks and make you reach out and touch things. I struggled this year to just zip by. Got caught on some Three Irish Girls yarn next to a DayBreak Shawl (I think this is actually the shawl that was on display!) but I untangled myself and kept going. Then I had to walk by again (these things happen) and my eyes fell on this bag below.

I grabbed it and slowly made it to the register and purchased my bag. Love it! I found out they are part of a line of Zombie totes and accessories put out by the blogger and pod caster Tina Henry. Will have to get more Zombie goodness in the future!

And below is all my wonderful haul laid out on my table when I got home. You will notice to the right there is a large pile of Brown Sheep yarn. I got this at over half off the price I normally pay and this is one of those yarns that I use A LOT. I mean all the time. So I kind of HAD to buy two large bags full and blew a large chunk of my pool of saved funds right then and there. I felt a little sad that I was bringing home a big pile of yarn that I can get easily and that I have used so much - but the savings I got it for made me happy again.

The lower left hand corner has a bunch of random alpaca that I kind of just had to have. The kind that you touch and end up opening your wallet and throwing money at random people in the hopes that the alpaca will then follow you home. Lovely Lovely stuff from alpaca owners.  There are also a few bold colored skeins up front that came from Happy Hands Yarn. I love this yarn dyer! She is just such a sweet sweet woman and her hubby is great too. We talked to them last year and I got to talk to her briefly this year. I am ALWAYS drawn to her colors and both years at the festival I have come home with a pile of her yarn. She also dyed the yarn for Lila & Claudine's Shop Hop in 2011 and it was the best yarn in the bunch! Just wonderful yarn and I will look for her booth every year.

I bought a few canned items from a person who had a booth in the barn. Sauerkraut and Strawberry-Rhubarb Jelly.  The sauerkraut is already half gone and I wish I would have bought a LOT more. It's something I will be watching for at other festivals. YUM! And in the above photo you will kind of see on the Zombie bag a spoon rest in the shape of a sheep! Yup! Brickyard Pottery & Glass had a booth and I had to have one of the sheep spoon rests. I was a little annoyed that the back was rough and she pretty much told me I could take it home and sand it and it would be fine. It would have really messed up any sort of counter top or wood table. Lucky for me I have a plastic cutting board on my counter under my coffee maker that it can rest on without hurting anything and I use it everyday now! WIN!

One of the yarns I fell in love with and ended up buying A LOT of was the yarn from Sun Valley Fibers. They have a Ravelry Group and they have an on-line store as well. The orange and black yarn (called Oriole!) and the next 5 skeins (stopping at the one marked CORAL) are all from them. They were one of the few boothes that took credit cards and I kind of went bonkers. The yarn was just so yummy I couldn't stop myself! (No - I don't knit socks and YES it is all sock yarn!) I do however have a lot of shawl patterns in my que on Ravelry so ... yeah. I should be good now hu. The multi colored red/orange yarn 7 skeins up is a yarn I went back to three times. It is called "Girl On Fire" by JL Yarnworks. I kept asking myself if I really loved the yarn or if I was just hooked on the name? Turns out it was both. Home it came! And way up at the tippy top are a gray and a yellow skein of corn yarn from Corny Goodness. If you haven't heard of corn yarn here is their "about page" where they talk about how wonderful this yarn is. (anti-bacterial, anti-odor..... all kinds of cool properties to this yarn!) They had a baby blanket made from this yarn there and I was quite taken with it - and may make one out of this fiber some time in the future.

And here is the mug I purchased at the festival. When I went to put this in my backpack I accidentally elbowed another woman in the boob! Color me embarrassed! She made a joke about me getting the other one too and that maybe they would grow a little bit bigger. Hee hee! At least she wasn't upset!

The festival was just wonderful and I had such a good time. I am already looking forward to next years festival!

Shepard's Harvest Festival 2012, Post 1

It was Mother's Day this past weekend which means it was also the annual Shepard's Harvest Wool and Sheep Festival in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. (YAY!) This year I went all by my lonesome since my hubby had an event of his own to attend. And this year the weather was amazing and the place was just A ZOO! I am happy it's so popular - but boy was it exhausting!

Instead of having a mile long post, I thought I would share a few pictures over several days. The web site has a wonderful description of what the festival is all about, so I will quote them here:

"Shepherd’s Harvest Festival is an opportunity for rural and urban people to meet and share information about sheep and sheep products and other fiber-producing animals. The Festival was started in order to provide a venue where wool producers, wool consumers and wool artisans could come together and share the excitement of working with sheep and their fantastic product – wool. Gradually, the Festival has grown to include other fiber animals such as angora rabbits, alpacas, and goats. The Festival strives to be a family oriented event that is not only fun but educational. Numerous classes are offered in the fiber arts — geared for all levels of experience — from the beginner to the expert. Each year, we offer some classes in the less well known fiber arts so students can expand their crafts expertise Many vendors of fiber and fiber animal related products show their wares at the Festival through a juried selection of vendors of unique products. If it’s fiber related, you probably will find a vendor with just what you have been looking for.
To add to the fun of the Festival, there is live entertainment each day. Demonstrations are ongoing for sheep shearing, herding dogs, spinning and knitting. Activities are planned to spark the interest of youngsters. Judging, showing and selling of fiber from sheep, angora rabbits and alpacas give you the opportunity to view some of the finest fleeces in the Upper Midwest and to compare your skills at selecting fleece with highly regarded fleece judges. There are many activities at the Festival. Feel free to peruse the activities listed in the right hand column of events at the Shepherd’s Harvest Festival. Then come and join in the fun at this year’s Festival! Thank you to the entire fiber community for making this event such a success!!"

This first photo is a view from the entrance of one of the buildings. These buildings are just HUGE and they were packed full of vendor's and music and demonstrations. It was just wonderful. I believe this was an area where you could go up and try different types of wheels. I am not a spinner, so I just admire all the doodads and doohickeys I see at the festival. There were so many ways to play with fiber being shown - it was mind blowing!

Here we have the same building but I aimed my camera down the other aisle. All the buildings had vendors down both sides of the buildings and then a row in the middle as well. I believe there were Four Primary buildings that were as full/busy as this and then other buildings with animals, classes, competitions, etc....

This was the food vendor area and they had sheep sheering here and a yurt set up and all kinds of cool stuff. I took this picture early on in the day - maybe 30 minutes after the gates opened. An hour later it was hard to walk around here there were so many people everywhere! The lines for the food were insane. I had promised myself this year I would get the Fried Walleye chunks with homemade tarter sauce - but alas. It twas not to be! I just couldn't bare waiting in the long long line on something that would blow my diet all to hell. I did get me some cheese curds though!  (DOH! So worth it though!)

I want to say these ladies were with a guild - but I can't remember now. You think you will remember all these details after you get home - but boy does it all dissolve into a colorful blur pretty quick! At any rate, these gals had several wheels set up and were spinning fiber. I know the lady in the red sweater was next to me in a line were I bought a whole bunch of stuff, and she said she was going to hit the booth owner up for donations - so I know they were with some non-profit type guild type thingy. (Oh boy - great memory Jen!)

And here we have Elmo the sheep. I didn't understand this when I read about it in the notes, but we could bring handmade decorations to "decorate" Elmo. I would have loved to have brought something for him to wear!

And here is one more view into a different building. I was standing in the doorway looking down - and you can make out the other entry way way down on the other end. I think I can safely say there wasn't much that was not sold here! It was just amazing. I spent about 4 hours here and I was just pooped when I left. But I also had a trunk loaded with goodies! Stay tuned and I will share my Stash Enhancement Photos in the very near future!

Swatch it!

When I was new to the knitting world I purchased a fairly large quantity of yarn on eBay. Almost all of what I purchased came from the same vendor and was 100% New Zealand Wool in various weights and colors. I purchased A LOT of this yarn. I mean a HUGE quantity. I decided recently that I should really use some of this yarn. So I grabbed out a ball in Bright Orange and started making a swatch.

I decided to use this as an opportunity to really try and understand gauge and swatching, and found a few useful links online I thought I would share. The first is on Knitty.com and is an article called "Swatch it!" Really good article on how to swatch and how to read your swatch. After I read this article I decided I would cast on 50 stitches and pretty much knit a washcloth in the wool yarn to get an idea of how it works up. I am knitting this on size 7 needles because the notes I have on this yarn tell me it's a DK/Worsted weight. My notes also tell me I have 2lbs 6 oz of this yarn, that it's 2 ply and that it comes in at about 1100 yards per pound. I decided that I wanted to understand a little more about what yarn weights really mean and found a page by Spinderella on yarn weight. Really interesting! This told me that a worsted weight is 900 - 1100 yards per pound and that DK is 1000 - 1400 yards per lb. Neat. So I can see why this comes in at DK/Worsted Weight.

I am knitting it up and I am feeling like it's close to Cascade 220 or perhaps Lion Brand Fisherman's wool in weight. I will be curious to see if this yarn blooms at all in the wash and block stage of this yarn. I will also be curious to see if it gets any softer as this is the scratchiest wool yarn ever created. Seriously rough! If it comes out of the wash and block process and still feels like it could remove a callous from my foot I will have to think about how I want to use this yarn. (Probably slippers, handbags and rugs rather than sweaters you wear against your skin.)

It's feeling good to pull some of this yarn out and think about what it could be used for. Also, if I can work it with some cascade 220 or fisherman's wool in various projects that could be really fun. I am anxious to see what the stitch per inch count comes up as when I am done swatching.

Mail Call!

When I went on to Etsy to purchase my shawl pin a couple weeks ago I ended up spending some time looking at other stuff too. Etsy is so addictive! I somehow (heh) ended up finding someone who was destashing. (Squee!) And so I ordered one of her lots which was Brown Sheep Handpaint Originals Yarn. I picked up 4 skeins of Onyx, 2 skeins of Cranberry, and one skein of Chestnut.

I am a BIG fan of Brown Sheep yarn. I use it a lot. Love the feel of it, love the finished products I have made from them, and I really like the colors the yarn comes in. I used my flash on these pictures so the colors are bleached out here, but these are wonderful colors.

I have been enjoying thinking about what I want to make with this yarn. I originally thought a shawl would be very warm and wonderful, but I read that this yarn felts really well, so now I am toying with the idea of making a bag out of it. Not sure which way the wind will blow on this, but the thought process is a joy!

Off to the Yarn Store!

So my need to make the Ovate Wrap created a needle need. The needles on this pattern are HUGE Size 19 Circulars. I ended up getting 40 inch length because I hope to use these again for stash busting afghans? Fantasies float through my head..... I also needed a size P crochet hook! Dang! That is a big hook! :) A few other items followed me home as well....

I picked up these 4 pins at the register. Bad photo.

Pin1: Sheep with a ball of yarn hanging off of him.

Pin 2: "I ate your grandma's knitting for lunch. (& it was crunchy)"

Pin 3: Lime Green with Skeleton holding ball of yarn

Pin 4: "Idle Yarn is the CATS play thing." [So. True!]

The yarn, Artful Yarns Old Western, was on discount for $6.00 a ball. I thought it would make nice mittens or hats. I see there are not many projects of this yarn on Ravelry and it's labeled discontinued. Still - It feels nice and I have never worked with Artful Yarns so I am happy!

My Three Needles. The HiyaHiya is a 24" size 6 that I needed to make the Citron eventually. I like HiyaHiya needles. They are way more affordable than the Addi Turbo's and they have nice flex in their cord. Paying for Addi's always kills me - but I know they will stick around for many many years, so I try and think of it as an investment. :)

I took this shot for a size gauge. The needle is longer than my finger and as round as a finger. HUGE! A fast knit indeed! I bet I could quickly knit a car cozy with these.....

Emma gave me the "Why are you bringing more yarn in this house?!?!" look while I unpacked and photographed my haul. I think she would have forgiven me had I given HER one of the balls of yarn to destroy, but that never happens (on purpose). Izzi our devil cat was sneaking up on Emma as I took this picture. She likes to attack and run. Charming little thing.

And that was my haul from the Yarn Store. This time I went to 3 Kittens Needle Arts and the entire haul was under $50.00. I had a 25% off one item coupon (for the huge addi) and a $50.00 Gift certificate from my mother-in-law for my Birthday, so it ended up a free trip! Sweeeeeet!

Day off ... sort of

Today I used a Holiday and had the day off from work. So of course I ran around like an insane chicken pecking at every rock possible.

I am tired!

At 8:30 this morning I was at the clinic getting my last Hepatitis B vaccine and a Flu shot. The regular shot lady was in and BOY is she better than the evil woman who filled in for her last time. HUGE difference in the pain factor between Awesome Pam and Evil Substitute lady.

Next - Off to Target for an hour of shopping. I have lost enough weight to be able to shop the clearance racks again and actually FIND items in my size that aren't awful! Wahoo! It's been awhile since I have been able to do that. I scored a tee shirt (that I intend to use to replace a sleep shirt I shrank out of), a long sleeve tee (that is so low cut when I tried it on that I can probably only ever wear under another shirt) and a hooded Sweatshirt for $21.00! Go Team Jen!

I also scored this lovely item. Our Bananas have been just laying on the counter, and our apples were in a bowl of their own. Now we can have the fruit all in one neat spot! I am WAY to excited about this and I know it. But, to be fair, we live in a little rambler and counter space is PRETTY limited, so getting things organized just feels good!

After Target I got a Starbucks coffee and then headed to JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts to pick up two skeins of Lion Brand Thick & Quick to make the Capucine Hat . I love Ravelry user SUS' version called Nice & Spice in particular, so I was compulsed and HAD to get some Thick and Quick to knit this asap. While there I also scored the Vogue Knitting with Martha on the cover and two more skeins of Sheep(ish). (Stash levels reaching critical! Must. Knit. Faster!)

After that it was a quick stop at the cash machine and then on to get my hair cut. Same style as last time, just a trim. While waiting I was crocheting another wash cloth and the lady next to me started chatting away to me about knitting and crochet. We had a nice little chat. :) I love how people open up to you and seem fascinated by knitting (or crocheting!) in public. I think I might make crochet my go - to for appointment waiting as it's so nice to shove it back into my purse when my name is called and not fear full destruction.

After my haircut I hit the grocery store (forgetting several items of course) and then home in time for lunch!

I took a break after lunch and watched an episode of The Biggest Loser and finished a knitting project. (Details to come!) And started a spontaneous new project too! (Details on that to come as well.) Then cleaning and organizing projects kept me busy the rest of the day.

Did I mention I am tired?!?! Really nice day though. I feel all accomplished. :)

Now it's time to put some laundry away, have a nice dinner and then PJ's and some TV knitting.

YAY for Friday! Double YAY for Friday's off!

Upper Midwest Alpacas 3rd Annual Fiber Festival

Fate was working for me this year and the Upper Midwest Alpacas 3rd Annual Fall Fiber Festival was held on my B-day! So my hubby and I headed out to Hopkins, MN and spent an hour or two looking over local fibers. This is only the second fiber festival I have been to and it was tiny compared to the Shepherd's Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival I went to in May. This festival was held in a school Gym and there were about 50 vendors set up.

I had an interesting talk with the vendor selling corn yarn about the milling process. He said that they had to change mills because of the road construction crews discovering that a biodegradable corn fiber mesh could be used to stop hillside erosion and now the mills are pumping out this corn based mesh like crazy. So the mill that would spin his fiber bumped him to a different mill, (smaller mill) and the fiber he got from this other mill is WAY softer! Interesting! (I found an article about this here if anyone is interested.)

We also had a nice chat with a lady selling Wassail cider and jelly. We picked up some of her spice packets and jelly for gifting this holiday (shhhhh) and she admired my Lucy Bag. She told me that she wanted to knit a bag and felt it and she went to the yarn store and the yarn cost her $200.00! She was horrified. :) I think I have gotten used to the sticker shock of good wool. Also - I thought it funny that she was horrified about the cost of yarn when every booth around her was selling expensive luxury yarn. Hee hee.

There were a lot of chatty people here who would just walk up and start talking to you. It was pretty welcoming and comfortable. I walked the entire circuit and then went back for the yarn I HAD to have. I ended up with four skeins.

This is 7.50 oz (469 Yards) of Black Alpaca from Enchanted Meadows in Wausau, Wisconsin. I believe this is about a Sport Weight (or DK?) and it's just squishy goodness. I new when I touched it that it was coming home with me. So. Awesome!

This Blue Lusciousness is 300 Yards of 100% Suri in Sport Weight from Riverside Alpacas in Lake City, MN. This yarn is so cool in my hands - it's almost silky to the touch. It is fun to just pet it over and over. I had to have this blue - my picture doesn't show the depth of color here - but it's just wonderful.

This skein is an Angora Rabbit and Wool Blend (60/40), it is worsted weight, and it holds 300 yards. This is from Angora Gardens from Clarks Grove, MN. They had really soft samples knit up at their booth and it made me want Angora Yarn in the worst way! This blend was pretty wonderful to touch and a little closer to my price range than the full angora I found sold at another booth. (Boy is it awesome to squish though!) This is the thickest yarn I purchased - which is funny since I am a bulky weight girl in most of my knitting.

And my final purchase was this lovely hand dyed sock yarn from Knit in Class Fiber Studios. The colors of the yarn were so wonderful! And the yarn is just squishy goodness. I try not to buy to much Superwash yarn, but this is a Superwash Sock yarn - in the colorway Smoke. 460 yards of soft yarn. Very lovely. I think it will make a nice shawlette.

I am quite pleased with my Stash Enhancement and have been having fun feeling the yarn and trying to think about what it wants to be knit into. Ravelry here I come! :)

And how was your Wednesday?

Our Bird Feeder in front of our house.

Emma on the bench that faces the bird feeder. Both Emma and our Cat Izzi love the activity at the feeder.

My reward for putting on my big-girl pants and going to the dentist - a lovely haul from Lila and Claudine's Yarn Store.

So I took Wednesday off to go to the dentist. My appointment wasn't until 10:45 so I was able to sleep in and have a quiet morning. I got myself looking human and ran to the Department of Moter Vehicles on my way yo the dentist and had my license renewed. Nice to get that out of the way. It's been four years since I had my last picture put on the license - so it will be good to have something that looks more like me to present.

When I got to the dentist I checked in and sat and read some crappy free book on my iPod. I was reading away when the receptionist came over and I looked up at her and smiled and said "Hi!" and she said, "I didn't recognize you! You came in and your hair...It's so different! It looks really cute! How long have you been wearing it like this?" And I told her I had gotten about 18 inches cut off three weeks earlier and it was still pretty new to me. She gave me praise and I was kind of touched that someone would go out of their way to give me a compliment. When you have been overweight for years you sort of get used to people not really seeing you - so it was nice to have someone give me a compliment.

Then I was called back to the office to get my teeth cleaned and the hygienist was all compliments too. Like SERIOUS compliments. "I just LOVE your hair! It is so pretty. Those layers..... Just beautiful!" Dang y'all - makin' me blush! ;) It was very gratifying to my little ol' ego. :) To be fair - I gave myself some BIG hair today for my DMV picture - and was full make-up and trying to look nice. But for it to hit the mark and have people fawn all over me??!?!? Um, Yeah. I will Soooooooooooo take that! (High Five!)

So I was steeled for bad news at the dentist. I had been told that my one molar had a pretty big crack in it and that I was going to need a crown before long, so I was sure it would happen this time. Imagine my delight when I found out I did NOT need any work done! Angels sang, let me tell ya! AND I found out that the bleeding I have going on it my upper front teeth when I brush and floss is due to my sleeping (snoring) with my mouth open at night. Apparently gums don't like to be dry - so if you sleep with your mouth open and you get dry gums over night your gums are more likely to bleed. Hu. Makes sense. Also good to know it wasn't from me doing anything wrong. :)

So I finished up at the dentist office and headed over to the yarn shop. I love this yarn store. They are so welcoming and kind. Helpful without sticking their hands in your wallet and making you feel like they like your money more that you. The Shop is called Lila and Claudine's and they just expanded and the place was even better than it was before! I love it when a LYS is able to grow - such a good sign that they are a) doing things right and b) growing! Love that. So I hopped in there and I just had to take a picture of my haul and share it with you all. I am VERY excited with everything I got and anxious to try it all out! The yarn I got is: Three balls of Cento , that I want to knit up with the two balls of Woolie Bullie in Black, ( I am thinking hat and mittens here). Two balls of Monsoon (for a shawl I think), a bottle of Ecualan in Eucalyptus. Two Cast Iron mice (not pictured - they ran out of the bag and hid in the kitchen when I got home...). I also got two skeins of of wool by Claudia & Co in the color Mustard Custard. (Yummy single ply wool - I am thinking perhaps a pair of Bella Mittens?) One skein of Lorna's Lace's Sock Yarn in Zombie BBQ. (Best name for a yarn Ever!) And last but not least - 1 skein of Fabjous Fibers Recycled Silk Yarn - So lovely I couldn't put it down! A mighty fine haul AND I was very close to the budget I set for myself - so GO me!

After my yarn splurge I came home, had lunch (vegetarian chili and a clementine) and then hit my work outs. I have to say - even though I went to the dentist - it was a REALLY nice day! I am happy!

And how was YOUR Wednesday?