I ordered all the rest of my yarn yesterday. Holy cow, I spent a lot of money! I’m so excited for it all to be coming in! Some of it might even come in today! I ordered wool and silk and cashmere and cotton and soy silk and lots of patterns and books and needles. I even ordered the new Clover knit lites. I could have used lighted knitting needles when we were coming home from Denver.

We spent the entire weekend folding and stapling and taping and folding and folding and FOLDING my newsletter. Jim has vowed that he will never fold another newsletter again. (Um, yeah, until the newsletter comes out again in two months.) I foresee a lot of folding in my future. Click here (PDF) to view the newsletter in PDF format. I’m really happy with it.

I’ve also picked out some furniture for the store. I’m getting this sofa from Kmart of all places. Gotta love the Martha Stewart Everyday. And I’m getting this table. It’s all very exciting.

The old store closes Saturday and then I can get in and start cleaning and painting. I’m feeling really good about the timeline. Everything should be all ready to go by August 1st!! Tonight is my meeting with all the teachers and I’ve got to go pick up some yummy snacks and drinks. I figure if nothing else, I can get them to like me because I feed them well.

Everything is falling into place… it’s all seeming SO real!!

More to come…

Check this out, if you click on this link http://gabbly.com/http://www.pretendingsanity.com. You can chat with other people reading this website. It’s pretty cool. You can do this with any website if you go to gabbly.com. Chats are not private, so just be aware of that. I will try to be on later this afternoon.

Monday night we decided at the last minute to join our friends in Cederedge, CO to go camping. I’m glad that we went, we haven’t been all summer, despite our best intentions. This was also Tucks first camping trip. He did pretty well, even though we couldn’t let him run free. (We were fairly close to the road and some houses.) We had him sleep in the tent with us and I was just thankful that he didn’t try to sleep on my face.

Here are a few pictures from our trip.

Oh, good Lord, things have been SO crazy around here. Today and tomorrow are yarn ordering days. All I can think about is yarn, I eat sleep and breathe it, it seems. Yesterday I was trying to tell Eden not to take sand out of the sandbox and instead I told her to put the yarn back in the sandbox.

More about the yarn (and more yarn) later. Somehow over this weekend, amidst the yarn decisions, camping and watching fireworks, I managed to crank out this baby sweater for my sister’s best friend.

It’s a pattern from Knitting for Two. I’m too lazy to get up and go look at which pattern it actually is. The yarn is Louet Sapphire, a chunky superwash. My mom was sweet enough to sew the zipper in for me and the grosgrain ribbon lining. All I have to say about the sweater is that I HATE seaming.

I changed several things about the pattern. For the shoulders, I did the three needle bind off. I left off the part on the front pieces that were supposed to be sewn around the neck and instead, picked up stitches around the entire neck and did an applied i-cord bind off. I also knit the sleeves in the round until the shoulder shaping and then knit the rest flat. And then I sewed and sewed and sewed the freaking seams.

But, overall, I still liked it. Now back to the YARRRRN!

We’re off to the last day of swimming lessons. The kids have done really well, Eden has even warmed up to her BOY teacher. Honor has mastered the “dunk” and today he’ll be dropped off the diving board (wearing a life jacket) to me waiting in the water below. I don’t expect that he’ll care much for that.

After lessons we’re going to have a picnic at the adjoining park and then go back to the pool to swim. Because I’ve been in Honor’s class with him, I haven’t been able to see much of what Eden has learned, so I’m looking forward to swimming with her and seeing how she has progressed.

Not a whole lot is new on the yarn store front, but things are all falling into place. Just a month to go until opening day. eek!

Here’s to a relaxing and LONG weekend!

Over the last week or so, I’ve been trying to get some models done for the store. This is hard, because my yarn hasn’t come in yet. Luckily, I have my trusty stash to turn to. (Any suggestions of great patterns would be very welcome at this point!)

Here is a scarf that I will be teaching. The construction slightly different from the scarf in Loop d Loop.

Knit from Fiesta La Luz 100% silk.

And I finished another pair of Victorian Wristlets (PDF). These are made out of Cascade Pima Silk, but in the future I think I will prefer Cascade Pima Tencel. It’s a little more sturdy, a little more shiny and a little softer.

Next up on my list? I think maybe the baby sweater from Knitting for Two. It is so freaking cute. I guess this means that my Ms. Marigold is on hold for a bit. But that’s ok.

I whipped up these teeny little socks out of a sample of yarn that I’m going to be carrying. Aren’t they so cute? And I LOVE the yarn. mmmm… handdyed superwash merino.

Thank you all for answering my questions and your suggestions. To answer some questions, I will be selling online, I will ship to Canada and I will let you know when the website gets up and running (which should be very soon!)

I met with the Cascade rep today, it was nice to see all the new stuff out there. I also got samples in yesterday for Southwest Trading Company, gotta love the soy silk… Buying all this yarn is making me very happy!!!

I’m opening up a yarn store!

My boss at the store I’ve been working for has decided to close the store. And this just makes it the perfect opportunity for me to open up my own store. I will be staying in the same place (a block from the house baybee!) ordering in a whole new stock, and yeah… owning a yarn store. I’ve got things all worked out so the kids are only away from me for two days a week (like it is now) and I’ll still be at the store as much as I need to be. And of course this means FREE YARN. What could be better than that?

Needless to say, things have been crazy around here. I haven’t even looked at Bloglines for over a week. But everything is falling into place. I’m still a little scared, but mostly excited. I’ll have a lot more details to come, but in the meantime, I could use your help. I want to know:
What would your ideal yarn store be like?
What are some cool things you’ve seen your local yarn store do?
What are things you’ve disliked in a yarn store?
What is your favorite yarn? Your favorite needle? Favorite book/pattern?

eeee!!

THANKS!

Monday, after two weeks of hearing every day “when is swimming lessons?” we started swimming lessons. Eden was more apprehensive than I expected her to be, but I think it’s mostly because her teacher is a boy. (dern boys!) Luckily her best friend is in the class with her so I can actually coax her into the water. Once she’s in, she’s totally fine, it’s just that initial moment of shyness that overcomes her.

Honor on the other hand is… Honor. I’m doing the mommy and me class with him so he’s not scared at all, just a wiggly, slippery ball of energy. Honors favorite part of swimming lessons is when we’re done and get to go play on the Splash Pad. Our pool just installed a series of fun fountains at the pool and so far it’s a HUGE hit. I’m still a little concerned about the combination of water and concrete, we’ve come home with some scrapes, but it is pretty cool nonetheless.

(Photos courtesy of my good friend Melissa.)

Yesterday Honor pooped in the potty all by himself. Today he did too.

It almost makes up for Monday when he smeared poop all over himself.

Almost.