Time flies

Wow, I didn't realize it's been over a month since my last post. I worked retail for 20 years, so I hardly ever had a weekend off. Now that I work at my company's main office, I have weekends off, and even after three years,I'm still reluctant to give up any of that time. As chance or luck would have it, I have had exactly one weekend free since the first of April, and won't have another one for another two weeks. On April 1st, we had a surprise birthday party for my sister in law at my aunt and uncle's house in Dover. The following Sunday, we had one for my mom's 65th birthday. Now, my family never throws surprise parties, so two in two weeks was our lifetime quota. What's funny is that my mom suggested and planned the one for Amy, and Amy suggested and helped plan the one for Mom. Two weekends ago, Mom and I went to the Sugarloaf craft show in Timonium. We both bought some gourmet food (what is it about these shows? I would never pay $25 for three little jars of chocolate sauce at the grocery store!), and I bought a dichroic glass bead to use in a necklace.

Last weekend, Mom and I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. It was packed! I bought 2 skeins of this yarn,

a beautiful mix of sage green and shades of blue and purple. Now I just need to figure out what to knit with it. Each skein is only 108 yards, so I might have to wait until my library gets its copy of "One Skein" before I decide. The yarn is so soft and has such a wonderful sheen, I want to make something special with it.

I also ordered two skeins of this yarn from Seaport Yarn. Mom exclaimed over how much she loved the yarn, so I ordered it to make something for her. I must not have been thinking clearly, because 950 yards isn't enough to make even a short-sleeved top that would fit her (we've both been given plenty of "frontal real estate"). I'll call them this week to see if I can add another skein to my order.

We were both drooling over the yarns at the Tess Yarns booth. I bought a pattern for a darling baby sweater to knit for my friend Lisa, who is due August 2nd, but they didn't have the yarn I wanted in stock, so I'll be placing an order with them, too. I loved the colorway Twilight, and they had a really pretty scarf knitted in Seabreeze that I want to try to dulipcate. Of course, the yarn I liked the best, Silk & Ivory, was $50 a skein. It's a 665 yard skein, though, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds. The problem with this yarn and the Blue Heron yarn I ordered is that 2 skeins isn't enough, but 3 skeins will probably leave me with a lot of extra yarn. What to do? What to do?