Sweatergirl and the spare day

So, I hope everyone enjoyed their Leap Day! I decided it was appropriate to start new projects, as, aside from the cold, I am also afflicted with Startitis. Probably brought on mainly by the temporary breakdown of the Yarn Diet/No-Yarn-Pact. Which was brought on by visiting two fabulous yarn stores on Saturday: Clever Ewe, with the MMKG retreat, and Little Red Schoolhouse, on my own, because Clever Ewe didn't have the one thing I had convinced myself I needed.

What did I start? Well, a Rosemary's Little Sweater, from the Green Mountain Spinnery book. Being suggestible, I am making it in green. Did you realize it only takes 96 stitches around to make a size 2 sweater at 4 st/in? And only 8.5 inches to the armhole. Wow - it's like a hat or something. So, the little green sweater is progressing. Of course, I had to make SOME changes for the Little Green Gal. I did a corrugated ribbing with some fabulous yarn found at Clever Ewe. It's Harrisville's Jasmine, which combines 1 ply of variegated chenille with 1 ply of wool. I've spun some yarn like this (well, spun the wool and plied with chenille), and it tends to stabilize the chenille and prevent the dreaded worm infestations.

My second new project is the Little Red Riding Cape, from the Oat Couture pattern. Red Encore worsted weight. Since size isn't a huge deal here, and I liked the available worsted-weight color better than the available DK color.

Since I was already off the wagon, I looked through the sale bins and found some Cestari cotton-wool DK-weight yarn and some 16" bamboo circular needles. Yippee. I'm sorry that I forgot to upload project pictures - so tune in tomorrow.

The retreat was quite lovely - we had great weather for driving through the countryside (the shop was about 10 miles off of the highway), and we got to within a block before we got lost. No problem. The smell of yarn drew us to the shop, and the yarn fever was contagious. After a good morning of shopping at Clever Ewe, a wonderful shop with lots of beautiful yarns, we had a tasty lunch at a deli around the corner. Yum. S was a bit surprised when he heard I had been to Ada, which is apparently an MG mecca, thanks to University Motors. So now we have an excuse to go back! The rest of the crew proceeded to another shop or two, but I headed home for a nap. Apparently a good time was had by all, however!