Boston was Fabulous!!!

But, first things first. Head over to Jillian's and meet my new friend Henry. What a cutie! And his mom has knit him so many new hats that his head will be covered until it rounds out nicely. Reports are that he's a sleepy baby - what good news for the whole family!


Many, many thanks to everyone who left comments about the Kimono. It was a lot of fun to wear and I even got a couple of comments. I did get the button on and started weaving in some of the ends. I don't remember if I expressed my dissatisfaction with the way some of the colors bleed through when woven in. I started to unweave them and make knots. I'm much more happy with the overall appearance, but this isn't something I can spend more than 20-30 minutes on without going stir crazy. The sweater is wearable as is, so knotting will be an on going project until it's finished.

Took the Cashmerino Cardigan with me as mindless knitting. I have the swatch here, but no time for scanning right now. You'll see it tomorrow.

Presentation in Boston went well. I had to input data into our database (something I've done hundreds of times, but never with a huge audience). There were lots of questions and as a result, I was in the hot seat for about 3 hours, but at least people were kind and everyone made a point of telling me that I'd done well. That was really nice. My plan was to go yarn shopping on Thursday night. My boss (aka Don Corleone) had other plans. He had organized a big meeting of all the other heads of the five families centers we work with. He leaned over on Thursday afternoon and said, "I'd like you to come to the meeting and take notes to record what goes on and what decisions are made."

Me: "This is going to make me very unpopular with the other data people."

Him: "I'm running the meeting. I get to make the rules."

I was right - I was not popular with the other data people on Friday. They got over it - or not, it doesn't really matter.


I took my girl Jillian's suggestion and treated myself on Friday. We got out of the meetings at noon - this left me lots of time. First, I trekked over to Mind's Eye Yarns. Otis the bunny was in residence in this lovely little Victorian house. Nice selection of medium to high $$ yarns, but what caught my eye was the merino/tussa silk blend roving. Beautiful shiny, soft roving. A hank of this came home with me as well as some Cascade 220 in purple (for guess who) for a sweater and a purple ball of Splash in Berry Parfait. Sassy's going to love a long, tubular scarf that she can wear like a balaclava.

So then, I hoped back on the T and went to Woolcott & Co.. I've been in this shop before and didn't think much of the service. They were nice enough, just didn't go out of their way to make me feel welcome. Let me tell you, I walked in there on Friday and there must have been some sort of neon sign or something over my head. They couldn't have been nicer to me if I was Daryl Hannah.

Seriously, they were in the process of putting out all their fall yarns, so the place was crowded with boxes. They pointed me right to the sales bins and pretty much said, 'get busy, that stuff needs to go.' Everytime I pulled out a yarn and asked about it, one of the clerks dropped what she was doing and hunted up a pattern book for me. The owner came out of the back of the shop and practically pulled me from place to place in the store shoving yarn at me. When I mentioned that I was working with the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino, Nikki demanded to see the work and then proceeded to show it to all the clerks and some of the customers too. Here's a partial list of what I bought:

Adrienne Vittadini Emma (enough for a shell)
Vittadini pattern book (with the shell pattern)
Noro yarn (I don't remember the name, but it's the wool, silk, and cashmere blend) I really wanted enough for a sweater, but the yardage on this stuff stinks (60 m) so I settled for a few skeins and Little Big Man (my 12-year-old son) will get a scarf or a hat out of it.
a couple balls of an orange yarn that was in the sale bin (it's orange - I love this color!)
Debbie Bliss' Noro 2 pattern book
a skein of Schaefer Yarn in this colorway


I had never seen this yarn in person. It is drop dead gorgeous. I had 3 skeins in my hands and forced myself to pick one. Nikki kept digging into the basket and say, "oooh, look at this one...and this one." She had a skein in her office that she wouldn't sell, but brought it out for me to fondle. It's a lovely deep purple to silvery lavendar skein and she's going to try and get more.

In the end, I was fretting about how I was going to get it all home. The sale's clerk said, "Well, if your purchase totals more than $100..." I looked at her over the moutain of stuff I had on the counter and she said, "We'll ship this out for you tomorrow morning."

In short, both Woolcott and Mind's Eye are worth a trip. If you're in Boston, make the pilgrimage, you won't be sorry.