Budda gives you a blessing

This, I think, is my favorite souvenir from San Francisco. It sits on the dining room table, where we sit for meals and where I work on the computer, and keeps me centered. It's a beautiful object and reminds me that there are important things in life and less important things. Sometimes it's important to remember that and not get caught up in the little stuff.

Speaking of which, I can't believe a whole work week has flown by! It has been a crazy busy week ... so busy that I didn't get around to blogging about the rest of our trip to San Francisco (or anything else for that matter). I'm glad to say that I don't go back to the office for two full days... thank goodness for the weekend!

So what about the rest of my trip. Well of course knitting played a role in my weekend trip! As I shared in my last post, I did do a bit of knitting. I'm now finished with both the front and back of my celtic tote. It was funny picking this back up after a bit of a hiatus. The pattern seems simply easy now. I don't know if my neurons have just resorted themselves to be able to knit this more easily or if my skills have actually increased that much, but I just zipped through the rest of the chart to finish the front of the bag. I've already started on the sides/bottom and think I may try to find fabric to line this bag as well.

But knitting was not the only fiber-related activity of the trip. No, of course not. I had to do a little yarn crawling too. First stop, Artfibers. This was a very nice store. Very helpful staff. You may know that Artfibers sells their own line of yarn and the best thing about the store is that you can see swatches of every yarn knit up in every color. There is nothing like seeing a yarn knit up for me. I just can't visualize what a yarn in a skein will look like when knit up. Seeing things all put together... great.

One swatch in particular called to me, a lovely sagey green silk/superkid mohair blend.


I don't have a pattern in mind yet but am hoping this will become a summer sweater.

Next stop, Imagiknit. OMG... this store!! Loved this store!! Really, I can't imagine how a store could get much better than this. Big space, stuff with lots and lots of different kinds of yarn, all well organized, very open, very bright, incredibly helpful staff. It was absolutely heavenly. It was one of those stores I kept going back and looking at everything a second, and third, and fourth time. Wow to live in San Francisco and have access to this store regularly!

One of my goals for this little trawl was to find some yarn to make a sweater for S. I think I've already mentioned (although I can't be certain and am too lazy to go back and look) but S is going to be living in Fort Bend, Indiana for a few months later this year as a visiting fellow at Notre Dame. Guess what, it's a little colder in Fort Bend than it is in Southern California. S has now decided that it would be great to have a handknit wool sweater.


I am happy to oblige and we picked out this great Ecological Wool for the project. So far, love this wool too. It seems like I can feel just a bit of lanolin in it as I knit, and it feel soft and slick as I work. The swatch I worked up and washed is just as soft and nice as it can be too. Very exciting.


I, of course, couldn't wait to start and cast on April 1st (no fools!). And the extra bonus... it gives me something to carry around in my Doctor's Bag!