Modern Shop Hop

Weekender if nearing the finish line.  The first sleeve is finished and the second sleeve is on its way.  The sleeve progress you see below was accomplished during an evening of football watching and a quiet Sunday morning with my tea.  My goal is to have this finished by November, including the blocking.  The timing is perfect because the weather has turned chilly.  We had our first frost this past week.

Once I finish this sweater my plans are to finish the Oktoberfest Shawl and then get to Christmas knitting.  I have projects queued up for the kids.

With the cooler weather this week, I found time to sit at my spinning wheel.  I finished the singles of the yak.  I let the newly spun single rest for a couple days and then started plying on Friday.  Even though I weighed and evenly divided the fiber before spinning the singles I'm not sure I have the same yardage from each spool.  We'll see when I get finished.  I may end up having to make a mini-skein if I end up with extra on one spool.

Here's a closeup of the plied yarn.  The color is a bit off in the photo, but you can see the shine.  I can't wait to see how the final yarn turns out.

Yesterday several local shops hosted the Modern Shop Hop.  My fabric enabler, Cindy, and I toured each of the stops on the tour.  One shop was a completely new discovery for me, two were old favorites and one was a long, lost friend.

Our first stop was Yarn It & Haberdashery in Grandview, Ohio. I am a regular (too regular for my wallet!!) at this shop.  The shop has a sample of the Comfort Fade Cardigan which I am totally in love with.  I bought these two lovely skeins of Baah! Sonoma to start building a stash for this sweater.   The colors in the photo are a bit washed out.  The skeins are greens on a grey base.

The second hop stop was Dabble & Stitch.  This cute, little shop in Clintonville focuses mostly on fabrics with a small sampling of yarn.  It was my first visit but it won't be my last.  The shop was demonstrating a quick craft which I will use for my sibling Christmas gifts.    The equation fabric and the Charlie Harper prints came from this stop.

The third stop was Sew to Speak in Worthington.  Sew to Speak is on of the old favorites.  The red print in the above picture came from this stop.  It is going to used an A-line t-shirt.  The pattern is one I bought last year from Sew to Speak.

The last shop on the tour was Quilt Beginnings.   Back when the kids were little, I caught the quilting bug.  I had my sewing machine set up in the dining room.  I could sew and keep an eye on the kids and dinner.  During this time I occasionally visited the original Quilt Beginnings store.  When the kids got involved in extracurricular activities, I found that quilting was not an easy take-along project.  That is when I started knitting more.  Now that the kids are out of the house, I am reacquainting myself with sewing and quilting.

Back to the shop hop.  Since I last visited Quilt Beginnings, the shop moved from the east side of the city to the northwest side.  I hadn't been to the new store, even though it has been there for several years.  I was quite overwhelmed and had trouble deciding if I wanted to buy anything.  I didn't buy any fabric but did buy a pattern for a stuffed animal.  Someday when I have grandchildren, I'll make them a softee using this pattern.

Someday.  But the kids need to finish their studies and get married first.