Yes, I still exist!

Sorry. I took the holiday weekend off. So shoot me!

Well, not really. I went quilting on Friday night, tried my best to not melt into a puddle of goo at the Rose Bowl on Saturday afternoon/evening, went outlet mall shopping on Sunday and took a nap on Monday. That sounds like a full weekend to me!

There isn't anything quilty that's new. I almost have my Halloween Row Robin blocks done (so BETH can CHILL! ... sorry, Carol! :) ) then will get cranking on my paper pieced blocks for the M&Ms mini-group. Wanna know why I haven't been sewing at home? Here's the "before" picture of my sewing cabinet before I started tackling the mess last night. Unfortunately, general cleaning had to take precedent since the cleaning folks showed up today. Progress has certainly been made, though, so that's good.

Wanna see the Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn I'm taking to class on Saturday? YUMMY! Love the colors and I think they turned out pretty well in this photo. I forgot to take a pic before I wound the skein into a ball, but I still think it looks good. Beach Knitting, here I come!

Speaking of Beach Knitting, here are two of my sweaters that have been hangin' out there for the summer as store samples. The green one is made out of Thaki New Tweed and Classic Elite premier cotton. AWESOME to knit with, to the point where I ordered the yarn to do it again in brown. I loved knitting this sweater and I can't wait for it to get cool enough so I can enjoy wearing it.

Next up is my "Phony Missoni" sweater. V-neck cardigan made with Cascade 220 tweeds. I made a fantastic deal with the store -- I let them display my sweater until it's cool enough to wear it and they had their finisher put the buttons on and weave in all of the ends. With all of those color changes, I think I made out like a bandit!

So since those have been store samples since June, what have I been up to? Well, I have the front and back of my Cherry Tree Hill silk merino sweater finished and joined with the fabulous three-needle bind-off. Sleeve #1 is cast on and is currently my traveling project. I also have been knitting away at the rib on my blue pocket sweater. Almost done with the 1" of rib, then will do 1" of garter. That will leave me with just the sewing to finish that sweater. Sleeves to body, armpit seams, weave in ends. Presto! Unfortunately, I have an obscene number of projects in that state of completion, so the swatches for my chunky alpaca and berocco touche (not to mention my merino cotton and the brown version of the green sweater) are just going to have to wait before they can grow up into actual sweaters. Too many projects, not enough time!

And finally, before I sign off, I need to cover my bases in case I don't find time to blog again tomorrow: GO STEELERS! (currently just over 26 hours to kickoff. I can't wait!!!)