Vini, vidi, texere

...or something like that.

So much has been going on that I'm overwhelmed before I even start. :)

Oldest news first: I learned to spin! Laura at Lettuce Knit is a wonderful teacher. Here's my first attempt at my very own yaarrrrrnnnn (made with Fleece Artist thingy-stuff [brain no work. not remember name of fluffy spinny stuff]:


It many-coloured and trés slubby, no? I did get better, I hasten to add. I'm now madly in love with spinning silk. I've got 2 gorgeous 'linum' spindles from Gemini Fibres, and am slinking my way through a myriad silk hankies. No idea what I'll do with it, but yum!

Next up, I have the coolest new sneakers in the universe. 'Nuff said.

Last Friday, my team won an award at work for being fantastic. I could use it to clock someone but good, or perhaps to cut my way out of the safe during a bank heist. This thing weighs about 5 pounds, and is a handspan and a half tall. And it's got my name on it. For scale, here's a pic of us listening to nice things being said about how superhuman we are whilst holding said lethal weapons plus cumbersome certificates (secretly, I'm really pleased). p.s. not that you can tell 'cos I've put in a tiny pic, but I'm wearing a moebius capelet.

Right - on to the fun stuff *fanfare*

Friday night was spent whooping it up with Knitting Olympics folks at the Spotted Dick at Yonge and Bloor (or, as I now like to call it, the Knitted Dick). I ate nachos. I hung with a collection of fine people, including Amy, Kelly, Kelly, Michelle, Stephanie, Sandi and others whose names I forget 'cos I'm a yarnhead. And I knitted. (Duh)

And of course the TTC Knit-A-Long took place this past Saturday, and man, was I baked when it was over...but I digress. It was a wonderful, zany, dramatic, fabulous time, with some (insert same set of adjectives here) people. I did registrations, and regret not really figuring out who were all the people I'd e-mailed with. Most of them must've been there, but in the midst of things it was hard to keep track of all the things I wanted to do!! (like buy yarn. and eat. and ride the TTC. and jump down on the tracks to retrieve Jacquie's poor lost yarn. etc.)

*note: I would pay to see the saga of Jacquie's yarn-on-the-tracks adventure all over again. So full of glee was I that I bought her some sock yarn in an attempt to make up for the trauma. It was that good: The screaming (keening?) of 15 yarn-mad women. The stunned, stricken look on her face. The drama! The pathos! The hilarity! *snerk*

I took photos for most of the day, and some of 'em turned out fabulously:

Here's the North Team at 'Bux before hitting Passionknit, doing a great job of bewildering patrons and passers-by both inside and out:















I exercised some restraint at Passionknit, forking out a modest sum - that would feed a small village somewhere for weeks - on some claret-coloured Rowan Kid Classic for the turtleneck shrug in Scarf Style (also on the cover).

And here we is post- third-rail felting experiment, en route to Knitomatic on the St. Clair 501 West bus:


I must comment, btw, on how beautiful the weather was. We were so lucky - it was supposed to rain all day, but the showers held off till the very end.


Can you taste the anticipation in the photo below???
We finally hit the spanktacular Knitomatic with no further hitches. Haley, as always, was wonderful. She had little loot bags for each of us, containing our very own ball of free sock yarn. She chose a special colour for me, which was a really lovely thing to do. I love that - when you have a great relationship with a shop owner to the point that they know what you like...and when you just get along with them 'cos they're so kicky, for heck's sake. Good for her, good for me. Happy symbiosis! She had Noro on sale, which was dangerously good. I bought 5 skeins of Kureyon and 4 of Cash Iroha...on top of the latest Knit.1 and Loop-D-Loop by Teva Durham and some sock yarn. Heavens to Betsy! Happy times. This pic just says it all for me. Here's the day right here, in a nutshell:

From Knit-o, more knitting on the lurchy, rotten, new-style Bathurst bus and on to the streetcar for the trek down to Lettuce, where we met up with West and Central for eatin' and shoppin', Kensington-style.

Look at all that yarn! Look at all that knitting going on! You can even see some knitwear floating around, too! Man, we are fierce in our devotion!

I picked up some silk hankies and Knitting on the Road (because yes, I do need more sock patterns).

Post-Lettuce was the grand streetcar spectacular on the Queen car out to the Beach and the Naked Sheep. The Star photog. snapped away, and we ended up with a pretty spektak photo in the Toronto Star, along with reporter Liz' spirited article.

I adored how freaked-out and nonplussed so many of the innocent bystanders looked. Delightful. Evil happy sigh.

I ran out of steam on the picture-taking front while we were at the Sheep (who offered draws and treats - many of which were made by fellow knit-a-longers - yum!), but am thrilled to report that I won a $25 gift certificate to Romni for the 'wittiest knitticism' of the day, thanks to my quipping that the TTC code for fetching yarn off the tracks should be "K2P2 St. Clair...".
And I made my absolutely self-indulgent, hugest splurge and forked over more insane quantities of dosh on a skein of hand-painted art yarn by A.L. de Sauveterre in the colourway 'Atropos', which I will use to make some gorgeous little fingerless gauntlets. So soft...so...addictive...

And here, dear readers, oh here is my haul of loot!!! I now officially have enough projects to last me till I'm 73.

The weekend didn't end with the Knit-A-Long, however -- sandi purl's brilliant husband Jay celebrated a birthday milestone on Sat night, so off we went to his surprise party (after much nappage).

And on Sunday, I took my mum to a special brunch at the Knit Café. We ate the most amazing food for three whole hours. Little course after little course of breads, homemade preserves, juices, pain au chocolat and croissants, Québec cheeses, salad of mixed greens, pickled mushrooms, beans and tomatoes, garlicky hummus-y stuff, organic scrambled eggs and asparagus. We topped the afternoon off with a visit to Haley at Knit-o, where we played with chirpy Pluto the bird and talked about art and knitting and all sorts. Whew! Happy mother's day, mum!