Lest you think there has been no knitting...

Yes, it's true, the kitchen remodel has totally taken over my brain. But I have kept right on knitting. I've got two blankets going with great big mindless mitered squares. (Amazing how you can mess up mindless knitting when you are tired through!) I will get photos asap.

The kids have been shuttling back and forth between home, camp and Grandma's. So there has been plenty of driving back and forth - we have to go to my mom's everyday to cook too. And the house is a dusty wreck. I am actually dying to clean it! Although when I finally can it's going to be such a huge job that I am dreading it too.

But my mom is in town and you know what that means! Yarn store raid!!! About twice a year we hit the store and shop like crazy. It helps that my mom brings along her credit card. :) Strangely hubby doesn't complain about all the yarn when he knows I'm not paying for it!

Here's a quick run down of the damage.

We hit the usual LYS and I came home with:



1. Iro Shade 57 (not a great photo of the yarn - my skeins are much richer) to make this:



"Fauna" a coat pattern from Berroco's Foliage Collection. (What is up with Berroco lately? Their past few pattern books were actually really good!) I was hoping to run this one up using my Mom's knitting machine. That thing is perfect for long swathes of stockinette like this. But we did some experiments & concluded that the yarn is too bulky for the machine so...I guess I will be hand knitting the yards and yards of stockinette. Oh well. I think yarn is so fab I won't mind. Definitely can't tackle this until the dead of winter though. Not exactly a summer weather knit.

2. Sublime Cashmere Merino Silk Aran in Smoke Blue



to make:



Wrap Jacket from the Sublime Aran Handknit Book. This one I am going to try to knit up on the machine. Sublime is a new line as far as I can tell and they have some great patterns. The yarn is very soft but still has some body to it.

3. Colinette has a new cotton yarn out called Banyan. I'm not a big fan of cotton but I like the feel of this enough to get some.



This is shade 90 and it's called Venezia.

To make this:



Cute top & should be a quick knit. It's called Ceylon and is from the Colinette Banyan Booklet.

I also ordered some DiVe Autunno in Aurora Borealis:



If you haven't felt this yarn yet you simply have to. It is SO soft and every single colorway is fabulous. I had a hard time choosing. I'm going to use the yarn to make this jacket:



It's called Joplin and is from Berroco again. Not the greatest picture of the pattern but you get the idea. I can probably also run this one up on the machine. Anything mainly stockinette comes out looking pretty good.

Can you tell I have a slight obsession with coats/jackets/wraps? :)

My mom got two sweaters worth of yarn for herself plus a couple of projects for the grand kids. We were both in a yarn induced haze by the end. I guess when you only go to the yarn store twice a year it's pretty exciting! I get a lot of virtual yarn happiness looking at stuff online & reading blogs but it is really nice to have a "feel and drool" day (as my mom calls it).

Wouldn't you know it though - one of the girls that works at the LYS mentioned a new store that was in our area that carried totally different stuff.....I guess you can see where that led. But that's a story for another day. :)